notes, and ascertain to what extent the supposed robbers had been successful in their enterprise.

Richard's two sisters, Bertha and Fanny, were there, and both of them very much terrified. Mr. Grant soon pacified them with the assurance that no one had been injured, and that there was no further danger. But Richard was not there, and his absence was noticed. He and Mr. Presby had been the only persons who had heard the robbers, and they had created the alarm. The old gentleman told his story, and Richard's testimony was very much needed to complete the chain of evidence. One of the men servants was sent up to request him to join the party.

"Tell them I don't feel very well, and have gone to bed again," replied Richard, when the man delivered his message.

But this was the most dangerous answer he could have returned; for Mr. Grant, followed by uncle Obed and Mr. Presby, hastened up stairs to ascertain the nature of his illness.

"What ails you, Richard?" demanded his father, in the tones of sympathy and kindness.

"Nothing particular; only I don't feel just right," replied the young midnight marauder, terribly alarmed as he thought of the probable consequences of this visitation.

"Well, open the door, and let me see what I can do for you," added his father.

"I don't want any thing done. I shall be well enough in the morning."

"You had better open the door, Richard; I want to see you about the robbers."

"I can't; I am in bed."

"Don't get up then," said Mr. Grant, more anxious than at first for the health of his son. "I have a key that will open the door."

These words struck terror to the soul of the guilty youth, and he sprang out of bed with all the haste he could command. One terror filled his mind—that his father might see his bleeding, lacerated limbs; and he did, what guilty persons often do, the stupidest thing of which the circumstances would admit. He had blown out the light when he heard them coming, and now in the darkness he pulled on his pants, forgetting that the bed clothes would as effectually hide his injured members as the garment.

He had hardly clothed himself in this partial manner before his father succeeded in opening the door. By the aid of the light which uncle Obed carried, the head and front of the melon expedition was revealed to the visitors, standing in the middle of the room, half clothed and wholly scared.

"Why, Richard! What ails you? Where have you been?" demanded Mr. Grant, as he and the others gazed with astonishment at the sorry figure which the male heir of Woodville presented.

If Richard had attempted to dress himself in the light, he would have rejected the muddy pants he now wore, and consigned them to the deepest depths of the clothes-press. He had rolled in the moist earth of the melon patch, while under the discipline of Mr. Batterman, till his clothes were plastered with mud. His face was begrimed with the rich black mould of the garden, through which the tears of anger and resentment he had shed, under the influence of their natural gravity, had furrowed passages down his checks.

In the simple but eloquent language of Mrs. Green, the housekeeper of Woodville, who had followed the party up stairs, to offer her services in the capacity of nurse, Richard was "a sight to behold." He had retired from the sitting room, and bade the family good night before nine o'clock, looking like a decent person. His pants were in good condition then; certainly, if they had been in their present plight, it would have been noticed.

The first impulse of the visiting party was to laugh at the extraordinary appearance he presented; but a stronger feeling of interest and sympathy overruled the inclination, and the culprit was spared this humiliation. Richard was almost as much astonished as they were, for he had not regarded a thing so trivial as his personal experience, in the excitement and terror of the hour.

While the party were scrutinizing him with surprise and anxiety, he happened to glance at the looking glass on the bureau. Then he saw his hair tangled and matted with mud and filth; then he saw his dirty, tear-furrowed cheeks; and then he saw his befouled and torn pants. In the choice language of the boys, it seemed to him that "the cat was out of the bag" beyond the possibility of recovery.

"What ails you, Richard? What under the sun has happened?" asked Mr. Grant again, for the terrified boy made no reply to the first question.

But Richard was an old head, and he had no notion of being defeated in the present contest of words or ideas. He stood like a statue in the middle of the floor, and made no reply to the interrogatories.

"Where have you been?" said his father. "Can't you speak?"

"I don't know," replied Richard, with a bewildered look, as he glanced with a vacant stare at his soiled garments.

"Don't know where you have been?"

"No, sir."

"That's very singular," said uncle Obed.

"Have you been up since you went to bed?" demanded Mr. Grant.

"I don't know," replied Richard, vacantly, as though the whole matter was as much a mystery to him as to the others.

"Where were you when the alarm was given?"

"Out on the roof of the conservatory."

"On the roof!" exclaimed his father. "How came you there?"

"I don't know," answered Richard, shaking his head.

"Don't you know any thing about it?"

"No, sir. I woke up, and heard some one halloo, Robbers! thieves! I was close by the window, and I jumped in, and hallooed with the rest of them."

"Were you standing on the roof?"

"No, I was flat on my face."

"I see," interposed Mr. Presby, holding up his hands with astonishment, "I understand it all. The poor boy is a sleep walker."

"Richard?" said Mr. Grant, who had never known his son to do such a thing before.

"Yes, sir; your boy is unquestionably a somnambulist. He has been wandering about the garden, and rolling in the mud, in his sleep. There have been no robbers or thieves here to-night. The poor boy fell on the roof; that was what waked him up; and the noise of his fall was what caused me to give the alarm."

"Very singular," added uncle Obed.

"I never had any suspicion that he got up in his sleep," said Mr. Grant.

"There are instances on record of persons addicted to the practice who have followed it for years, without discovery. Now, if you will come to my room, I will read you several accounts, given by competent medical authority, of cases just like this," observed Mr. Presby.

But none of the party, at that hour of the night, were disposed to consult the authorities on the subject. If they had looked on the table in Richard's room they might have found there a yellow-covered pamphlet novel, entitled "Sylvester Sound, the Somnambulist." It is a very curious and amusing account of the antics of a sleep-walker, describing the wonderful feats he performed in his slumbers, without having the least idea of what he was doing.

The ingenious young rogue had been reading the book that very day, and in the drama of the "Midnight Alarm," played at Woodville, he had chosen for himself the part of Sylvester Sound. While his father went for a hammer and nails, to secure the window, Richard removed his telltale trousers, and jumped into bed.

CHAPTER V.

RICHARD IS DETERMINED TO BE REVENGED.

Mr. Grant nailed up the window in Richard's room, so that when he should again walk in his sleep, he might not be exposed to the peril of breaking his neck by falling off the roof of the conservatory. When this important work was accomplished, the party retired. Mr. Presby was a philosopher, and his library had not been a merely ornamental appendage of his house. He had read a great deal, and thought a great deal; and mesmerism, biology, psychology, somnambulism, and kindred subjects, had each in its turn been considered, and a conclusion reached.

Mr. Presby, therefore, was not