Mrs. Bond had drank her cup of tea and eaten her one slice of toast. Rose had not yet come down to breakfast, and she hesitated to disturb her slumbers. So she put the tea-pot down by the fire, covered over the toast, and sat back in her great leathern chair.

How beautiful they looked, Rose and the boy, the night before, when she crept in, shading her lamp with her hand, to see if they were comfortable. The boy's rosy cheek lay close to his mother's blue-veined breast, and one of his little dimpled arms was thrown carelessly about her neck. Rose with her long hair unbound vailing her neck and shoulders, the tears still glistening on her long lashes, heaving now and then a sigh that it was pitiful to hear.

"Ah!" thought Mrs. Bond, "the father of the child should have looked in upon that scene! Those sighs, those tears, went they not up to heaven as swift witnesses against him?"

And so Mrs. Bond, the previous night, extinguished her small lamp, and knelt by the bed-side; she prayed for those wronged sleepers from the gushing fullness of her Christian motherly heart. Poor children!—for what was Rose but a child?

And now Mrs. Bond sat there over her breakfast-table thinking it all over. Her own life had been as placid as the little lake you could see from the cottage door; it was pitiful to her the storm of sorrow beating down upon that fair young head. She tried to see something bright in her future. She knew that though she herself had no wish beyond those humble walls, save to lie in the pleasant church-yard when her work was done, yet that life must be monotonous and dull there for one like Rose. She knew that the heart, when wretched and inactive, must prey upon itself. She wished she knew how to interest Rose in something. There was Charley, to be sure, dear little fellow, but he was at once a pain and a pleasure—a comfort and a reproach. Poor little lamb! he did not know why the caress he proffered was at one time so joyfully welcomed, then again repulsed with coldness; he did not know how cruelly the poor heart against which he nestled was rent with alternate hopes and fears; he did not know why he involuntarily hid his head from the strange, cold look, in those sometime—loving eyes.

Mrs. Bond sat a long time thinking of all this; yes, very long, for an hour and a half was a great while for her to sit still of a morning. She thought she might as well creep up softly, and see if Rose were waking. She knocks gently—no answer; they still sleep, she must waken them. She opens the door—there is no one there but herself; the clothes have all gone from their pegs, and a note lies upon the table.

Mrs. Bond takes her spectacles from their leathern case, and her hand trembles as she breaks the seal. It is in a delicate, beautiful hand. Her dim eyes can scarce see the small letters; her hand trembles too, for an indefinable fear has taken possession of her.

The letter ran thus:—

"Mother,—

"For so I will call you always, even though I am going to leave you. You thought I was sleeping when you knelt by my bed-side last night, and prayed for Charley and me. Every word I heard distinctly—every word was balm to my heart, and yet I leave you.

Oh! do not ask me why—I love him, the father of my child—it is life where he is, it is death where he is not. I go to seek him, the wide earth over. What else is left me, when my heart wearies even of your kindness, wearies of poor Charley? Mother! pray for

"Your Rose."

Mrs. Bond did "pray," long and earnestly; she shed reproachful tears, too—good, motherly Mrs. Bond, that she had not done impossibilities. Would that none of us more needed forgiveness.