ny fixed for evermore?"

"As far as you and I are concerned, love," said Hester to him, "I could
almost wish that this were the end. I feel as if almost any change
would be for the worse; I mean supposing you not to look as you do now,
but as you have always been till now. Oh, Edward, I am so happy!"

Her husband could not speak for astonishment and delight. "You remember
that evening in Verdon woods, Edward--the evening before we were
married?"

"Remember it!"

"Well. How infinitely happier are we now than then! Oh! that fear--
that mistrust of myself! You reproved me for my fear and mistrust then;
and I must beg leave to remind you of what you then said. It is not
often that I can have the honour of preaching to you, my dear husband,
as it is rather difficult to find an occasion; but now I have caught you
tripping. What is there for you to be uneasy about now, that can at all
be compared with what I troubled myself about then?--Since that time I
have caused you much misery, I know--misery which I partly foresaw I
should cause you: but that is over, I trust. It is over at least for
the time that we are poor and persecuted. I dare not and do not wish
for anything otherwise than as we have it flow. Persecution seems to
have made us wiser, and poverty happier; and how, if only Margaret were
altogether as we would see her, how could we be better than we are?"

"You are right, my dear wife." These few tender words, and her
husband's brightened looks, sufficed--Hester had no cares. She forgot
even the fever, in seeing Edward look as gay as usual again, and in
feeling that she was everything to that feeling, that conviction, for
which she had sighed in vain, for long after her marriage. She had then
fancied that his profession, his family, his own thoughts, were as
important to him as herself. She now knew that she was supreme; and
this was supreme satisfaction.

When Margaret sprang up to her new labours in the chill dusk of the next
morning, she flattered herself that she was the first awake; but it was
not so. When she went down, she found her brother busy shovelling the
snow away, and making a clear path from the kitchen door to the
coal-house. He declared it delightfully warm work, by the time he had
brought in coals enough for the day, and wanted more employment of the
same sort. He went round to the front of the house, and cleared the
steps and pavement there; caring nothing for the fact, that t