92 ‘THE SILVER LAKE STORIES.

already been gone a day and night, and
fears were entertained that they were
lost, or something worse had happened
to them. On consulting together, the
different clergymen of the city had
agreed to close their churches, and the
citizens were requested to meet at a
certain spot, to organize, or form into
parties, to go off in different directions,
and seek for the missing family.

“J very well remember what a strange
sort of melancholy excitement there
was about the whole affair; how, all
the afternoon, as I sat by the window,,
parties of men were passing, with their
thick walking-sticks in their hands;