which can never fail to do otherwise than the very best for its object--
a care more than sufficient for all the emergencies of life, and beyond
life. And so, as the days went on, the possibilities of the future
ceased to terrify her. Loving life, and bound to it by ties that grew
stronger and closer every day, she was yet not afraid to know, that
death might be before her; and she grew gentle and quiet with a peace so
sweet and deep, that it sometimes startled Graeme with a sadden dread,
that the end might, indeed, be drawing near.

Graeme was set at rest about one thing. If there had lingered in her
heart any fear lest her brother's happiness was not secure in Fanny's
keeping, or that his love for her would not stand the wear and tear of
common life, when the first charms of her youth and beauty, and her
graceful, winning ways were gone, that fear did not outlast this time.
Through the weariness and fretfulness of the first months of her
illness, he tended her, and hung about her, and listened to her
complaints with a patience that never tired; and when her fretful time
was over, and the days came when she lay hushed and peaceful, yet a
little awed and anxious, looking forward to she knew not what, he
soothed and encouraged her with a gentle cheerfulness, which was, to
Graeme, pathetic, in contrast with the restless misery that seemed to
take possession of him when he was not by her side. One does not need
to be very good, or very wise, or even beautiful to win true love; and
Fanny was safe in the love of her husband, and to her sister's mind,
growing worthier of it every day.

Graeme would have hardly acknowledged, even to herself, how much Arthur
needed the discipline of this time, but afterwards she saw it plainly.
Life had been going very smoothly with him, and he had been becoming
content with its routine of business and pleasure. The small successes
of his profession, and the consideration they won for him, were in
danger of being prized at more than their value, and of making him
forget things better worth remembering, and this pause in his life was
needed. These hours in his wife's sick-room, apparently so full of rest
and peace, but really so anxious and troubled, helped him to a truer
estimate of the value of that which the world can bestow, and forced him
to compare them with those things over which the world has no power!
Fanny's eager, sometimes anxious questionings, helped to the same end.
The con