the masculine sex--this solace has lit the taper of
hope, the taper of hope that emits the brighter ray.

Esther Lockwin will meet her lord again. She will dwell with him where
the clouds of pride and ambition do not obscure the path of duty.

She who a half hour ago could not live on must now live at all cost.
She has other labors. She must visit the portrait painter's to-day.
She would that the gifted orator might be portrayed as standing before
the immense audiences which used to greet his voice, but it cannot be
done. She must be contented with the posthumous portraits which
forever gratify and disturb the lovers of the dead.

It is a day's labor done. The portrait will be praised on all hands,
but it has not come without previous failures and despairs.

To return to the house out of which the light has gone--how Esther
Lockwin dreads that nightly torment! Shall she linger at the parental
home? Is it not the bitterer to feel that here the selfish life grew
to the full? Is it not worse than sorrow to discover in this abode the
same influences of estrangement? What is David Lockwin in the old home?

A dead man, to be forgotten as soon as possible!

No! no! Better to enter the door where the white arm reached out for
the message of blackness. Better to go up and down the stairs
searching for David, listening for Davy's organ--better to fling one's
self on the couch, abandoning all to the tempest of regret and
disappointment; to cry out to David; to apostrophize the unseen; to
fall into the hideous abyss of hopelessness; to see once again the
north star of religion; to call upon God for help; to doze; to awaken
to the abominations of the reality; to remember the escape from
perdition; to hasten to the duties of the day!

So goes the night. So comes the morning. She who would not live the
evening before is terrified now for fear of death ere her last great
labor shall be done.

She calls her carriage. She rides but a few squares. Every block in
that noble structure represents a pang in her heart. Some of those
great stones below must have been heavier than these sobs she now
feels. "Oh, David! David! Every iron beam; every copestone, every
coigne of vantage, every oriel window in this honorable edifice is for
you! Every element has cost an agony in her who weeps for you."

The widow gazes far aloft. It has been promised for this date, and it
is done. Something of the old look of pride comes