oned dead away.

He was walking wildly about, ready to tear his hair, when she tottered;
he saw her just in time to save her, and laid her gently on the floor,
and kneeled over her.

Away went anger and every other feeling but love and pity for the poor,
weak creature that, with all her faults, was so lovable and so loved.

He applied no remedies at first: he knew they were useless and
unnecessary. He laid her head quite low, and opened door and window, and
loosened all her dress, sighing deeply all the time at her condition.

While he was thus employed, suddenly a strange cry broke from him: a cry
of horror, remorse, joy, tenderness, all combined: a cry compared with
which language is inarticulate. His swift and practical eye had made a
discovery.

He kneeled over her, with his eyes dilating and his hands clasped, a
picture of love and tender remorse.

She stirred.

Then he made haste, and applied his remedies, and brought her slowly
back to life; he lifted her up, and carried her in his arms quite away
from the bills and things, that, when she came to, she might see nothing
to revive her distress. He carried her to the drawing-room, and kneeled
down and rocked her in his arms, and pressed her again and again gently
to his heart, and cried over her. "O my dove, my dove! the tender
creature God gave me to love and cherish, and have I used it harshly? If
I had only known! if I had only known!"

While he was thus bemoaning her, and blaming himself, and crying over
her like the rain,--he, whom she had never seen shed a tear before in
all his troubles,--she was coming to entirely, and her quick ears caught
his words, and she opened her lovely eyes on him.

"I forgive you, dear," she said feebly. "BUT I HOPE YOU WILL BE A KINDER
FATHER THAN A HUSBAND."

These quiet words, spoken with rare gravity and softness, went through
the great heart like a knife.

He gave a sort of shiver, but said not a word.

But that night he made a solemn vow to God that no harsh word from his
lips should ever again strike a being so weak, so loving, and so beyond
his comprehension. Why look for courage and candor in a creature so
timid and shy, she could not even tell her husband THAT until, with her
subtle sense, she saw he had discovered it?

CHAPTER XII.

To be a father; to have an image of his darling Rosa, and a fruit of
their love to live and work for: this gave the sore heart a heavenly
glow, and elasticity to bear