"I have given her a composing powder.

Keep her as quiet as possible, and don't talk to her about your father." Doctor Prescott got into his chaise and drove away up the road, and Jerome went in to his mother.

For a while she kept her rocking-chair in constant motion; she swung back and forth or hitched fiercely across the floor; she repeated her wild cry that her husband had fallen down and died, and nobody need say anything different; she prayed and repeated Scripture texts.

Then she succumbed to the Dover's powder which the doctor had given her, and fell asleep in her chair.
Jerome and Elmira dared not awake her that she might go to bed.

They sat, each at a window, staring out into the night, watching for their father, or some one to come with news that his body was found--they did not know which.