cleared by a few lightning words from her indignant
lips, and her whole figure trembles, as she shrinks within your embrace,
with the thought of that great evil that seemed to shadow you. The
villain has sought by every art to beguile her into appearances which
should compromise her character and so wound her delicacy as to take
away the courage for return; he has even wrought upon her affection for
you as his master-weapon: a skilfully contrived story of some accident
that had befallen you, had wrought upon her--to the sudden and silent
leave of home. But he has failed. At the first suspicion of his falsity,
her dignity and virtue shivered all his malice. She shudders at the bare
thought of that fiendish scheme which has so lately broken on her view.

"Oh, Clarence, Clarence, could you for one moment believe this of me?"

"Dear Madge, forgive me if a dreamy horror did for an instant palsy my
better thought;--it is gone utterly; it will never, never come again!"

And there she leans with her head pillowed on your shoulder, the same
sweet angel that has led you in the way of light, and who is still your
blessing and your pride.

He--and you forbear to name his name--is gone,--flying vainly from the
consciousness of guilt with the curse of Cain upon him,--hastening
toward the day when Satan shall clutch his own!

A heavenly peace descends upon you that night,--all the more sacred and
calm for the fearful agony that has gone before. A Heaven, that seemed
lost, is yours. A love, that you had almost doubted, is beyond all
suspicion. A heart, that in the madness of your frenzy you had dared to
question, you worship now, with blushes of shame. You thank God for this
great goodness, as you never thanked him for any earthly blessing
before; and with this twin gratitude lying on your hearts, and clearing
your face to smiles, you live on together the old life of joy and of
affection.

* * * * *

Again with brimming nectar the years fill up their vases. Your children
grow into the same earnest joyousness, and with the same home faith,
which lightened upon your young dreams, and toward which you seem to go
back, as you riot with them in their Christmas joys, or upon the velvety
lawn of June.

Anxieties indeed overtake you, but they are those anxieties which only
the selfish would avoid,--anxieties that better the heart with a great
weight of tenderness. It may be that your mischievous Frank run