Grief for the loss of his children, and remorse for the blight which he had brought upon his household, had undermined his constitution, never strong; and when a prevailing fever settled upon him it found an easy prey.

In ten days' time Margaret and Walter alone were left of the happy band who, two years before, had gathered around the fireside of the old homestead.
Loudly Mrs.Hamilton deplored her loss, shutting herself up in her room, and refusing to see any one, saying that she could not be comforted, and it was of no use trying! Lenora, however, managed to find an opportunity of whispering to her that it would hardly be advisable to commit suicide, since she had got the homestead left, and everything else for which she had married Mr.Hamilton.
"Lenora, how can you thus trifle with my feelings?
Don't you see that my trouble is killing me ?" said the greatly distressed lady.
"I don't apprehend any such catastrophe as that," answered Lenora.
"You found the weeds of Widow Carter easy enough to wear, and those of Widow Hamilton won't hurt you any worse, I imagine." "Lenora," groaned Mrs.Hamilton, "may you never know what it is to be the unhappy mother of such a child!" "Amen!" was Lenora's fervent response, as she glided from the room.
For three days the body of Mr.Hamilton lay upon the marble center table in the darkened parlor.

Up and down the long staircases, and through the silent rooms, the servants moved noiselessly.

Down in the basement Aunt Polly forgot her wonted skill in cooking, and in a broken rocking-chair swayed to and fro, brushing the big tears from her dusky face, and lamenting the loss of one who seemed to her "just like a brother, only a little nigher." In the chamber above, where six weeks before Carrie had died, sat Margaret--not weeping; she could not do that--her grief was too great, and the fountain of her tears seemed scorched and dried; but, with white, compressed lips, and hands tightly clasped, she thought of the past and of the cheerless future.

Occasionally through the doorway there came a small, dark figure; a pair of slender arms were thrown around her neck, and a voice murmured in her ear: "Poor, poor Maggie." The next moment the figure would be gone, and in the hall below Lenora would be heard singing snatches of some song, either to provoke her mother, or to make the astonished servants believe that she was really heartless and hardened.
What Walter suffered could not be expressed.