e could not get over it. It would have been some
comfort to her if they could have brought back the child's remains,
and buried them where her mother had slept for years, and where the
body of her father had been so recently laid; but to leave her alone
in the wild region where they had buried her, was something of which
she could not think without a pang.

On the small sum of money which he had brought back from his western
adventure, Parker recommenced his old business in the very town
where he lived, and in the store that he occupied at the time of his
marriage. As his means were more contracted, he could not do as good
a business as the one he had been so foolish as to give up several
years before, and he soon fell into his old habit of complaining and
perhaps now with more cause. To such complaints his meek-tempered
wife would reply in some words of encouragement and comfort, as--

"You do the best you can, and that is as much as can be expected of
any one. You plant and sow--the Lord must send the rain and the
sunshine."

Back in the old place and among her loving sisters, the heart of
Mrs. Parker felt once more the warm sunshine upon it--the gentle
dews and the refreshing rain. But a year or two only elapsed before
her husband determined to seek some better fortune in another place.
Without a complaining word his wife went with him, but her cheek
grew paler and thinner afterward, her step slower and her voice even
to the ear of her husband sadder. But he was too much absorbed in
his efforts to get along in the world to be able to see clearly the
true condition of his wife, or, if he at all understood it, to be
aware of the cause.

Their new location proved to be an unhealthy one, and the loss of
another child drove them away, after a residence of a year. Mrs.
Parker suffered here severely from intermittent fever. She was just
able to go about when her husband declared his intention to leave
the place on account of its being sickly.

"Where do you think of going?" she asked, raising to his her large
pensive eyes.

"I have hardly made up my mind yet," he replied. "But I was thinking
of R--."

Rachel's eyes fell to the floor, and a gentle sigh escaped from her
bosom. This was noticed by her husband.

"Have you any objection to R--?" he asked.

"Why not go back to the old place?" Rachel ventured to say, while
her eyes were again fixed upon him, but now earnestly and tearfully.

"Would you rather live th