on gently, wake up cheerfully--I alone will be the sufferer.

OLD M. (dreaming). My son! my son! my son!

AMELIA (seizes his hand). Hark!--hark! his son is in his dreams.

OLD M. Are you there? Are you really there! Alas! how miserable you
seem! Fix not on me that mournful look! I am wretched enough.

AMELIA (awakens him abruptly). Look up, dear old man! 'Twas but a
dream. Collect yourself!

OLD M. (half awake). Was he not there? Did I not press his hands?
Cruel Francis! wilt thou tear him even from my dreams?

AMELIA (aside). Ha! mark that, Amelia!

OLD M. (rousing himself). Where is he? Where? Where am I? You here,
Amelia?

AMELIA. How do you find yourself? You have had a refreshing slumber.

OLD M. I was dreaming about my son. Why did I not dream on? Perhaps I
might have obtained forgiveness from his lips.

AMELIA. Angels bear no resentment--he forgives you. (Seizes his hand
sorrowfully.) Father of my Charles! I, too, forgive you.

OLD M. No, no, my child! That death-like paleness of thy cheek is the
father's condemnation. Poor girl! I have robbed thee of the happiness
of thy youth. Oh, do not curse me!

AMELIA (affectionately kissing his hand). I curse you?

OLD M. Dost thou know this portrait, my daughter?

AMELIA. Charles!

OLD M. Such was he in his sixteenth year. But now, alas! how changed.
Oh, it is raging within me. That gentleness is now indignation; that
smile despair. It was his birthday, was it not, Amelia--in the
jessamine bower--when you drew this picture of him? Oh, my daughter!
How happy was I in your loves.

AMELIA (with her eye still riveted upon the picture). No, no, it is not
he! By Heaven, that is not Charles! Here (pointing to her head and her
heart), here he is perfect; and how different. The feeble pencil avails
not to express that heavenly spirit which reigned in his fiery eye.
Away with it! This is a poor image, an ordinary man! I was a mere
dauber.

OLD M. That kind, that cheering look! Had that been at my bedside,
I should have lived in the midst of death. Never, never should I have
died!

AMELIA. No, you would never, never have died. It would have been but a
leap, as we leap from one thought to another and a better. That look
would have lighted you across the tomb--that look would have lifted you
beyond the stars!

OLD M. It is hard! it is sad! I am dying, and my son Charles is not
here--I am borne to my tomb, and he weeps not over my grave. How sweet
it is to be