aments of childhood, make us wonder
and grieve; but more at variance than any of these was the
expression of Alice Lovell's beautiful features with the
character they seemed made to bear. Intense and anxious
watchfulness marked it now, a tremulous quiver shook her hand
as she drew the threads through the canvas; and though her
large eyes were calm, and her attitude composed, the least
sound made her start.

"How is he now?" inquired Mrs. Middleton in a voice scarcely
above a whisper.

"Sleeping, thank God, and quietly too. Oh, Mrs. Middleton,
hope is strong within me yet, and strength will be given us
never to forsake him."

"Hope! strength! Alice, where are they to be found?"

Alice pointed to the sky and then to her own heart, and said,
"_There_ and _here_. In quietness and in confidence shall be
our strength." After a pause she resumed, "You were with him
some time to-day, did he speak to you?"

Mrs. Middleton grew paler still at this question, and bowed
her head in assent.

"What did he say?" continued Alice. "Oh, do not spare
_me!_--do not think of _me!_ What did _he_ say?"

Mrs. Middleton joined her hands together and exclaimed,
"'Where is she? Where is she?' was what he said. Again and
again he repeated these words in a tone of indescribable
anguish, and I was almost thankful when his mind wandered
again, and I could leave his dreadful question unanswered.
Alice, my child, I am so weak, and you are so strong in your
faith, in your hope, in your boundless charity, that I must
give way before you, and for once ask you in mercy to let me
speak of _her_. I could kneel on her grave and pray to be
resigned; but now as it is I grow wild with terror--"

"Oh, let us speak of her, and let us pray for her; let us
never have another secret fear, another unspoken terror. Let
us pray that in this world she may still be blessed, or in a
better she may have been mercifully received."

"You do not understand me yet, Alice. _He_ does. The same
horrible fear has darted through his mind, darkened and
clouded as it is. Her own deed; her own hand,... Alice, you
never guessed the extent of his misery or of mine."

"Never guessed it, Mrs. Middleton? I have been with him in his
hours of fierce delirium; I have been with him when he has
taken me for _her_, and addressed to me words which have made
my blood run cold; words of guilty love and of horrible
remorse. I have lived between you and him during these days of
darkne