his face faster than she could kiss them
away. Then I feared if Charlie should die lest Benny should die too;
and then I knew that Charlotte could not bear all this, and I prayed
in my heart to God for Charles. And the next day, when the good
physician said the danger was past, we felt to thank God that he had
so chastened our affections, and ever loved him the more.

So we lived in love and happiness for many years, and all that time
not a shade of discord passed between us; and I often thought what a
dreary world this had been to me if Charlotte had never been mine. I
used to pity my bachelor neighbor, and, as I thought, I could see the
tear of disappointment in his eye when he witnessed my happy lot. I
saw it was a vision, and only the figure of Margaret, my once loved
and pretty sister, who existed then but in the land of spirits, was
before me.

And I told Margaret of the vision, and could not repress a sigh that
it was not reality; and musing long on what I was, and what I might
have been had nature dealt with me more kindly, until the vision
returned. Again I lived the life of youth's fancy.

But the boys now began to mingle a little with the world, and we
feared we were not equal to the task of educating them. We trembled
when we thought of the dangers before them, though we could not
believe it possible that they should ever do wrong. Alas! what trouble
was before us!

I had carried home a box of strawberries, and set them in the pantry,
and setting myself down in the library, waited for Charlotte to come
home from shopping. I saw Charlie come from the pantry, but thought
nothing at the time, and when Benny came in, bade him bring them to me
that I might divide them between them--they were gone; Charles must
have taken them, for no one else had been in the pantry. I called him
to me, and asked if he had taken them. I asked without concern, for I
knew if he had, he did it supposing it to be right. He said, "No,
sir." "Ah," said I, "you did." He then inquired what ones I meant, and
I told him, and told him he must confess it, or I must punish him. But
when I talked so seriously of punishment, he seemed confounded. He
turned pale, and only said, "I did not do it." That was a trying
moment; and when Charlotte came in, we considered long and anxiously
what we ought to do. Should we let the theft go unpunished, and the
falsehood to be repeated. Again we urged him to confess. The answer
was still the same. There