bing consciousness of her. She had
never seen his face in all her life, but hope had sunk within her, and
her timid glance had dropped before its stern, unloving, and repelling
harshness. As she looked upon it now, she saw it, for the first time,
free from the cloud that had darkened her childhood. Calm, tranquil
night was reigning in its stead. He might have gone to sleep, for
anything she saw there, blessing her.

Awake, unkind father! Awake, now, sullen man! The time is flitting by;
the hour is coming with an angry tread. Awake!

There was no change upon his face; and as she watched it, awfully, its
motionless response recalled the faces that were gone. So they looked,
so would he; so she, his weeping child, who should say when! so all the
world of love and hatred and indifference around them! When that time
should come, it would not be the heavier to him, for this that she was
going to do; and it might fall something lighter upon her.

She stole close to the bed, and drawing in her breath, bent down, and
softly kissed him on the face, and laid her own for one brief moment
by its side, and put the arm, with which she dared not touch him, round
about him on the pillow.

Awake, doomed man, while she is near! The time is flitting by; the hour
is coming with an angry tread; its foot is in the house. Awake!

In her mind, she prayed to God to bless her father, and to soften him
towards her, if it might be so; and if not, to forgive him if he was
wrong, and pardon her the prayer which almost seemed impiety. And doing
so, and looking back at him with blinded eyes, and stealing timidly
away, passed out of his room, and crossed the other, and was gone.

He may sleep on now. He may sleep on while he may. But let him look for
that slight figure when he wakes, and find it near him when the hour is
come!

Sad and grieving was the heart of Florence, as she crept upstairs. The
quiet house had grown more dismal since she came down. The sleep she had
been looking on, in the dead of night, had the solemnity to her of death
and life in one. The secrecy and silence of her own proceeding made the
night secret, silent, and oppressive. She felt unwilling, almost unable,
to go on to her own chamber; and turning into the drawing-rooms, where
the clouded moon was shining through the blinds, looked out into the
empty streets.

The wind was blowing drearily. The lamps looked pale, and shook as if
they were cold. There was a distant glim