dismissed; what this grateful wife feels for the benefactor
she has unwittingly wronged; but will never wrong with her eyes open;
what this lady pure as snow, and proud as fire, feels at the seeming
frailty into which a cruel combination of circumstances has entrapped
her.

Put down the book a moment: shut your eyes: and imagine this strange and
complicated form of human suffering.

Her mental sufferings were terrible; and for some time Rose feared for
her reason. At last her agonies subsided into a listlessness and apathy
little less alarming. She seemed a creature descending inch by inch into
the tomb. Indeed, I fully believe she would have died of despair: but
one of nature's greatest forces stepped into the arena and fought on the
side of life. She was affected with certain bilious symptoms that added
to Rose's uneasiness, but Jacintha assured her it was nothing, and would
retire and leave the sufferer better. Jacintha, indeed, seemed now to
take a particular interest in Josephine, and was always about her with
looks of pity and interest.

"Good creature!" thought Rose, "she sees my sister is unhappy: and that
makes her more attentive and devoted to her than ever."

One day these three were together in Josephine's room. Josephine was
mechanically combing her long hair, when all of a sudden she stretched
out her hand and cried, "Rose!"

Rose ran to her, and coming behind her saw in the glass that her
lips were colorless. She screamed to Jacintha, and between them they
supported Josephine to the bed. She had hardly touched it when she
fainted dead away. "Mamma! mamma!" cried Rose in her terror.

"Hush!" cried Jacintha roughly, "hold your tongue: it is only a faint.
Help me loosen her: don't make any noise, whatever." They loosened her
stays, and applied the usual remedies, but it was some time before she
came-to. At last the color came back to her lips, then to her cheek, and
the light to her eye. She smiled feebly on Jacintha and Rose, and asked
if she had not been insensible.

"Yes, love, and frightened us--a little--not much--oh, dear! oh, dear!"

"Don't be alarmed, sweet one, I am better. And I will never do it again,
since it frightens you." Then Josephine said to her sister in a low
voice, and in the Italian language, "I hoped it was death, my sister;
but he comes not to the wretched."

"If you hoped that," replied Rose in the same language, "you do not love
your poor sister who so loves you."

Whil