We must now go back to Vernon, and inquire how Mrs. Raymond is getting on, while Harry is each day drifting further and further away from home.

Harry’s first and only letter from the city has already been given. It brought comfort and a degree of hopefulness to his mother. She felt that she could bear her solitude better if Harry was doing well. A few years, and they might be together again, as he anticipated; perhaps living in New York. In the mean time, he must come home once a month at least. Then his letters would, no doubt, be frequent.

Two days passed, however, and no letter. She began to get anxious, but reflected that Harry probably had a great deal to do. Still it was not like him to neglect her. He was too thoughtful and considerate a boy for that.

Two days more passed, and still no letter. Mrs. Raymond now become very anxious. She had about made up her mind to go up to the city herself, though she could ill spare the money needful for the trip, when she met Squire Turner in the street, on the way home from the post-office.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Raymond,” he said, graciously: “what do you hear from Harry? I am told he has gone to the city to seek his fortune.”

Mrs. Raymond was glad to have some one to whom she could impart her anxiety.

“I am feeling very anxious about him,” she said. “I received a letter from Harry four days ago, just after he reached New York, and I have heard nothing since.”

“No doubt he is very busy,” said the squire.

“He would not be too busy to write me a few lines. He would know that I should feel anxious,” said Mrs. Raymond.

“Don’t feel troubled, Mrs. Raymond. I know how it is with boys. They dislike writing letters. It was the way with me when I was a boy.”

She shook her head.

“It isn’t the way with Harry,” she said. “He knows too well how lonely I am without him, and how much I depend upon hearing from him.”

“Perhaps he has written, and the letter has miscarried. Letters often do. I have it happen frequently.”

“It may be,” said Mrs. Raymond, with momentary relief. “I wish I was sure of it. He is my only boy, Squire Turner. If anything should happen to him, it would break my heart.”

Knowing full well the wicked plot he had contrived against this poor woman’s peace and happiness, Squire Turner felt a momentary thrill of compunction at what he had done. But his innate selfishness soon conquered this feeling. He had too many reasons for wishing Harry away, to sympathize with his mother.

“Very likely you’ll get a letter to-night,” he said.

“If not, I shall go to the city to-morrow morning,” said Mrs. Raymond. “I am afraid something has happened to Harry.”

Here was a chance for Squire Turner to make what would be regarded as a friendly offer.

“Mrs. Raymond,” he said, “it will be quite an undertaking for you to go to the city, not to mention the expense, which will, of course, be a consideration with you. I was thinking of going there myself one day next week, but as you are feeling anxious about Harry, I will change my plans, and go to-morrow. I will hunt up your son, and bring you home full particulars about him. I don’t think, however, you need to feel anxious.”

“O Squire Turner, will you, indeed?” said the poor woman, gratefully. “You are very kind, and I shall feel it as a great favor.”

“Certainly; it will give me great pleasure to oblige you. If you have anything to send him, I will carry it with pleasure.”

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I will ask you to carry a pair of stockings I have just footed for him. And will you tell him to be sure to change his stockings if he gets his feet wet?”

“I will, with pleasure, carry any message. But why not write a note and send by me?”

“I think I will, if you will be so kind as to carry it.”

“Oh, don’t mention it! I hope, Mrs. Raymond you will regard me as a near friend. If you will write the letter in the course of the day, I will send James round after supper to get it.”

“I am afraid it will be too much trouble for your son.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said Squire Turner, cordially.

Mrs. Raymond parted from the squire, feeling more favorably disposed towards him than ever before. To confess the truth, he had never been much of a favorite of hers. His cold, disagreeable manners, and his general reputation as a hard, close-fisted man, had repelled not only her, but people generally. But now he seemed wonderfully thawed out. He was actually genial and cordial, and the manner in which he had entered into her feelings about Harry, and his kind offer to go to the city on a day he had not intended, produced a strong impression upon her mind.

“I didn’t think Squire Turner could be so kind,” she said to herself. “I have done him injustice. He has a good heart, after all.”

“James,” said Squire Turner, at the supper-table that evening, “I want you to go over to Mrs. Raymond’s, directly after supper.”

“What for?” asked James.

“I am going to New York to-morrow morning, and have agreed to carry a letter and small parcel to her son Harry.”

James turned up his nose.

“Why don’t she come to the house, and bring it, then?” he asked.

“I promised to send you.”

“I don’t want to be Mrs. Raymond’s errand-boy. Harry Raymond is a low upstart, and I shouldn’t think you would be willing to carry bundles for him.”

“That is my business,” said Squire Turner, who, but for private reasons, might have shared his son’s objections.

“I’ve got a headache,” said James. “I don’t feel like going out.”

His father understood very well that this was not true. Still he had always been in the habit of humoring James in his whims, and now, instead of exerting his rightful authority as a parent to secure obedience, he condescended to conciliate him.

“If you have a headache,” he said, “the fresh air may do you good. Go as quick as you can, and when you come back I will give you a dollar.”

This argument, addressed to his son’s selfishness, prevailed. James had seen at the village store a new fishing-pole, which he desired to buy, and with the promised reward he could do so.

“Can’t you give me the money now?” he asked. “There’s something I want to buy at the store, on the way.”

“You’ll have to go there after you return,” said the squire, who at once saw that this was the best way of securing a prompt return.

James took his cap and started for the cottage of the Widow Raymond.

“The old man’s getting mighty obliging,” he muttered to himself, meaning, of course, his father, by the not very respectable term used. “I should be too proud, if I were he, to carry bundles to that pauper, Harry Raymond. Anyhow, I get a dollar by the operation, and that’s something.”

Arrived at the cottage, James knocked sharply at the outer door. It was opened almost immediately by Mrs. Raymond herself.

“Good-evening, James,” she said, courteously. “Won’t you walk in?”

“Can’t stop,” said James. “I’m in a great hurry. Have you got that note ready you wanted to send to the city?”

“I’ll get it in a moment. But you had better step in.”

“No, I can’t,” said James, not taking the trouble to acknowledge the invitation. “I am in a great hurry.”

Mrs. Raymond went back into her sitting-room, and speedily reappeared with the note and the pair of stockings wrapped in a brown paper.

“I am sorry to trouble you with this parcel,” she said. “Your father was so kind as to offer to carry it.”

“Umph!” muttered James, ungraciously.

“I am much obliged to him, and to you also for your trouble in coming around for it.”

James did not deign a reply, but, turning his back, marched off, feeling that he would rather have carried a bundle for any one than for Harry Raymond. If he could have known that at this very moment the boy whom he hated so intensely was speeding away from America, doing the duties of a sailor-boy, he would have felt compensated for the disagreeable nature of the favor he was so unwillingly doing.

Squire Turner went to the city the next day, as he proposed. He went round to the office in Nassau Street, temporarily occupied by Lemuel Fairchild, the address having been communicated to him by Mrs. Raymond, though this was hardly necessary, as Hartley Brandon had apprised him by letter of the details of the plot which they had mutually arranged. Of course he found it locked, and the tenant gone. The great commission house of Fairchild & Co. had mysteriously disappeared. In order to have something to report, he called at the next room.

“Can you tell me,” he asked, “whether Mr. Fairchild still occupies the adjoining room?”

“No,” was the reply; “he only occupied it for a week, and then left. I understand that he left without paying his rent.”

“Indeed!” said Squire Turner; “that surprises me. I understood that he was at the head of a large and responsible business house.”

The other laughed.

“If you had seen him, you would soon have corrected your mistake. He was a seedy adventurer. I don’t believe he was worth twenty-five dollars in the world.”

“Indeed!” repeated the squire; “I am concerned to hear this. The fact is, the son of one of my neighbors—a widow—came to the city to enter his employ. One letter has been received from him, but no other. His mother is feeling very anxious. How long since they vacated the room?”

“I have not seen him for four or five days.”

“Did you see anything of the boy?”

“Yes; I saw a boy here last Monday, and on Tuesday morning, but not since. Fairchild was here for a few minutes in the afternoon; but he, too, has been absent from that time.”

“Really this looks suspicious. What would you advise me to do?” asked Squire Turner, with an appearance of concern.

“Lay the matter before the police authorities. Most likely this Fairchild is a swindler, and they may know something about him. I know of nothing else to advise.”

“Thank you. I believe I will follow your advice. Good-morning.”

“Good-morning, sir.”

Squire Turner decided in reality to follow his recommendation. Nothing was better adapted to clear him personally of any suspicions of having had a hand in Harry’s abduction, in the improbable contingency of such suspicion being aroused. Besides this, he was founding a claim to Mrs. Raymond’s gratitude, which might lead her hereafter to regard his suit with favor, in case he should find it politic to seek her in marriage. He accordingly called at the police head-quarters, and laid the case before the authorities, taking care, however, not to be explicit, as he had no wish to have Fairchild actually arrested.

He also called at the office of a morning paper, and, obtaining copies for the last three or four days, read, with satisfaction, the record of the Sea Eagle’s sailing.

“Now,” he thought to himself, “the field is clear, and I can carry out my plans without interruption.”