say?--what did she do?'

"'She didn't say much,--"Oh, my God! my God!"--something like that.
The next morning she showed me a letter which she had written to
Margaret.'

"'To Margaret?' I started up, but fell back again, helpless, with a
groan.

"'Yes,' said Joseph,--'and it was a letter worthy of the noblest
woman. I wrote another, for I thought Margaret ought to know
everything. It might save her life, and yours, too. In the mean time,
I had got worse news from her still,--that her health continued to
decline, and that her physician saw no hope for her except in a voyage
to Italy. But that she resolutely refused to undertake, until she got
those letters. You know the rest.'

"'The rest?' I said, as a horrible suspicion flashed upon me. 'You
told me something terrible had happened.'

"'Yes,--to Flora. But you have heard the worst. She is gone; she is by
this time in Rome.'

"'Flora gone? But you said she was here.'

"'_She?_ So _she_ is! But did you think I meant Flora? I
supposed you knew. Not Flora,--but Margaret! Margaret!'

"I shrieked out, 'Margaret?' That's the last I remember,--at least,
the last I can tell. She was there,--I was in her arms;--she had
crossed the sea, not to save her own life, but mine. And Flora had
gone, and my dreams were true; and the breath and magnetic touch of
love, which infused warm, sweet life into me, and seemed not Flora's,
but Margaret's, were no illusion, and----what more can I tell?

"From the moment of receiving those letters, Margaret's energies were
roused, and she had begun to regain her health. There is no such
potent medicine as hope and love. It had saved her, and it saved
me. My recovery was sure and speedy. The happiness which had seemed
too great, too dear to be ever possible, was now mine. She was with me
again, all my own! Only the convalescent, who feels the glow of love
quicken the pure pulses of returning health, knows what perfect bliss
is.

"As soon as I was strong enough to travel, we set out for Italy, the
faithful Joseph accompanying us. We enjoyed Florence, its palaces and
galleries of art, the quaint old churches, about which the religious
sentiment of ages seems to hang like an atmosphere, the morning and
evening clamor of musical bells, the Arno, and the olive-crowned
Tuscan hills,--all so delightful to the senses and the soul. After
Florence, Naples, with its beautiful, dangerous, volcanic environs,
where the ancients aptly located their hea