Harold hastened to Vermont, whither he knew the invalid had been conveyed.  It was toward the close of the first autumn day that he entered the little village, upon whose outskirts was situated the farm of his dying friend.  The air was mild and balmy, but the voices of nature seemed to him more hushed than usual, as if in mournful unison with his own sad reveries.  He had passed on foot from the village to the farm-house, and when he opened the little white wicket, and walked along the gravelled avenue that led to the flower-clad porch, the willows on either side seemed to droop lower than willows are used to droop, and the soft September air sighed through the swinging boughs, like the prelude of a dirge.

Arthur was reclining upon an easy-chair upon the little porch, and beside him sat a venerable lady, reading from the worn silver-clasped Bible, which rested on her lap.  The lady rose when he approached; and Arthur, whose gaze had been wandering among the autumn clouds, that wreathed the points of the far-off mountains, turned his head languidly, when the footsteps broke his dream.

He did not rise.  Alas! he was too weak to do so without the support of his aged mother’s arm, which had so often cradled him in infancy and had now become the staff of his broken manhood.  But a beautiful and happy smile illumined his pale lips, and spread all over the thin and wasted features, like sunlight gleaming on the grey surface of a church-yard stone.  He lifted his attenuated hand, and when Harold clasped it, the fingers were so cold and deathlike that their pressure seemed to close about his heart, compressing it, and chilling the life current in his veins.

“I knew that you would come, Harold.  Although I read that you were missing at the close of that dreadful battle, something told me that we should meet again.  Whether it was a sick man’s fancy, or the foresight of a parting soul, it is realized, for you are here.  And you come not too soon, Harold,” he added, with a pressure of the feeble hand, “for I am going fast—­fast from the discords of earth—­fast to the calm and harmony beyond.”

“Oh, Arthur, how changed you are!” said Harold, who could not keep from fastening his gaze on the white, sunken cheek and hollow eyes of his dying comrade.  “But you will get better now, will you not—­now that you are home again, and we can nurse you?”

Arthur shook his head with a mournful smile, and the fit of painful coughing which overtook him answered his friend’s vain hope.

“No, Harold, no.  All of earth is past to me, even hope.  And I am ready, cheerful even, to go, except for the sake of some loved ones that will sorrow for me.”

He took his mother’s hand as he spoke, and looked at her with touching tenderness, while the poor dame brushed away her tears.

“I have but a brief while to stay behind,” she said, “and my sorrow will be less, to know that you have ever been a good son to me.  Oh, Mr. Hare, he might have lived to comfort me, and close my old eyes in death, if they had not been so cruel with him, and locked him within prison walls.  He, who never dreamed of wrong, and never injured willingly a worm in his path.”