Stand By The Union

of the night, in his room on the second floor of his father's palatial mansion

o answer to

he repeated i

an an older person to pass a whole night on difficult duty, without a wink of sleep, for he had been accustomed to spend a portion of every night in planking the deck on his watch; but at Bonnydale, his quiet hom

when an impression had fastened itself upon his mind, he was inclined to investigate it. It seemed to him that he had been awakened from his sleep by t

there was no one there, and not a sound of any kind could be heard. He walked about the hall in his bare feet, and listened attentively at the doors of severa

that the impression he had received had been given him in a dream, though he could not remember that he had been dreaming. But when he came to the fron

and he was confident that he had been the last to enter the house. He was very sure that he had not left the door unfastened, and this assurance made him confident that some person had entered the house. The no

contained. Putting his lamp on the table, he went out upon the veranda, and looked all about him. The grounds were very extensive, and a broad avenue led to the street. It

veranda; the first, that he had not put on his shoes before he left his chamber, and the second, that he had not taken his pistols, for a bullet would travel a gr

eans of knowing which way the intruder at the mansion had turned, to the right or the left, or whether, like the timid colored gentleman in a trying situation, he had taken to the woods

an hour; and then, watchful and careful officer as he was, there were five hundred chances agai

, he had a great many small drawers in his rooms, and a dozen or more keys; but he had never lost them, for the reason that he carried them chained to his nether garment. But he had two sets of keys, one for the house, and one for the

retired. He did not wish to arouse the family by ringing the great gong bell, but it was too cold to spend the rest of the night out-doors in his half-clothed condition, for he was as liable to ta

et him in was astonished to see him partially dressed, and wondered if he had not been walking in his sleep. In the lower hall, he was satisfied that the w

. Passford from the

Christy, and who was still wondering what fit

nded the lady of the mansion, in tone

plied without proper consideration, and he revised his speech. "I don't know that anything's the matter, ma'am

, mother," called Chri

early two o'clock in the morning," said Mrs. Passford, as s

ut anything, for the ship is not going to the bottom just yet," replied Chr

Mrs. Passford insisted. "You will catch a cold that

ell if I had not been afraid o

ink to-night," persisted the lady, concluding that her son was trying to conceal something from her,

overcoat from the stand and put it on. "I waked an hour ago, or more, with the idea that some one had opened the

Mrs. Passford, though with but little of the woman

now I closed it when I came in last night, and I saw something moving down the avenue, which could only

orry Passford had put in an appearance in the upper hall, with Bertha Pembroke. The alarm was again briefly explained, and the invalid gentleman was ass

on such occasions. In the dining-room no attempt to open the steel safe set in the wall, which contained a vast amount of silver, jewelry, money, and other valuables, had been made. In a word, wherever they examined the rooms, no sign of any depredations could be discovered. The burglar d

object in coming into the hous

e to give it

he was so careless as to leave on the

he di

u spoke to him; and he might have ransacke

he di

iven up the conundrum, and Christy was leading the way u

you would not have heard him at the door. Perh

he took from his coat pocket on the bedpost an envelope containing hi

solved till Christy