out and fair. It is a calm letter, a friendly
letter; but it is short, terribly short. It bids you come home--"_at
once!_"

----And you go. It is a pleasant country you have to travel through;
but you see very little of the country. It is a dangerous voyage,
perhaps, you have to make; but you think very little of the danger. The
creaking of the timbers, and the lashing of the waves, are quieting
music compared with the storm of your raging fears. All the while you
associate Dalton with the terror that seems to hang over you; and yet,
your trust in Madge is true as Heaven!

At length you approach that home: there lies your cottage resting
sweetly upon its hill-side; and the autumn winds are soft; and the
maple-tops sway gracefully, all clothed in the scarlet of their
frost-dress. Once again as the sun sinks behind the mountain with a
trail of glory, and the violet haze tints the gray clouds like so many
robes of angels, you take heart and courage, and with firm reliance on
the Providence that fashions all forms of beauty, whether in heaven or
in heart, your fears spread out, and vanish with the waning twilight.

She is not at the cottage-door to meet you; she does not expect you; and
yet your bosom heaves, and your breathing is quick. Your friend meets
you, and shakes your hand.--"Clarence," he says, with the tenderness of
an old friend,--"be a man!"

Alas, you are a man;--with a man's heart, and a man's fear, and a man's
agony! Little Frank comes bounding toward you joyously--yet under traces
of tears:--"Oh, papa, mother is gone!"

----"Gone!" And you turn to the face of your friend; it is well he is
near by, or you would have fallen.

He can tell you very little; he has known the character of Dalton; he
has seen with fear his assiduous attentions--tenfold multiplied since
your leave. He has trembled for the issue: this very morning he observed
a travelling carriage at the door;--they drove away together. You have
no strength to question him. You see that he fears the worst: he does
not know Madge so well as you.

----And can it be? Are you indeed widowed with that most terrible of
widowhoods? Is your wife living, and yet--lost! Talk not to such a man
of the woes of sickness, of poverty, of death; he will laugh at your
mimicry of grief.

----All is blackness; whichever way you turn, it is the same; there is
no light; your eye is put out; your soul is desolate forever! The heart
by which you had grown up into t