ght of Heaven, and each hour that his life was prolonged was to
her a boon and a blessing. She trusted that there was true sorrow for
the past--not merely dread of the consequences, as she traced the
shades upon his face, while he listened to the hymns that she encouraged
Johnnie to repeat. In that clear, sweet enunciation, and simple,
reverent manner, they evidently had a great effect. He listened for the
first time with his heart, and the caresses, at which Johnnie glowed
with pleasure as a high favour, were, she knew, given with a species of
wondering veneration. It was Johnnie's presence that most soothed him;
his distressing, careworn expression passed away at the first sight of
the innocent, pensive face, and returned not while the child was before
him, bending over a book, or watching the baby, or delighted at having
some small service to perform. Johnnie, on his side, was never so well
satisfied as in the room, and nothing but Violet's fears for his health
prevented the chief part of his time from being spent there.

Her own strength was just sufficient for the day. She could sit by
Arthur's side, comprehend his wishes by his face, and do more to relieve
and sustain him than all the rest; and, though she looked wretchedly
weak and worn, her power of doing all that was needed, and looking upon
him with comforting refreshing smiles, did not desert her. The night
watch she was forced to leave to be divided between his father and
sister, with the assistance alternately of Sarah and the regular nurse,
and she was too much exhausted when she went to bed, for Theodora to
venture on disturbing her by an unnecessary word.

Theodora's longing was to be continually with her brother, but this
could only be for a few hours at night; and then the sight of his
suffering, and the difficulty of understanding his restlessness of
mind, made her so wretched, that it took all the force of her strong
resolution to conceal her unhappiness; and she marvelled the more at the
calmness with which the feeble frame of Violet endured the same scene.
The day was still more trying to her, for her task was the care of the
children, and little Helen was so entirely a copy of her own untamed
self, as to be a burdensome charge for a desponding heart and sinking
spirits.

On the fifth morning the doctors perceived a shade of improvement; but
to his attendants Arthur appeared worse, from being less passive and
returning more to the struggle and ma