"My Dear Lewis: Before you receive this letter, you will have had the explanation of my disappearance from New York. A merciful Providence directed me, in my partial derangement, to this peaceful retreat. Here I have found rest for body and soul—peace such as the world could never give the heart, even were it not bowed down by a sorrow like mine. Not that I forget past errors; nor that the review does not humble me in the dust. I confess, with shame and bitterness of spirit, my wasted years, my unsanctified affections, my evil passions. But for the assurance of the Father's pardon, the Saviour's loving pity, the black catalogue would strike me dead with horror and anguish. It is a fearful thing to be made to see one's self as she is; to scan in terrified solicitude the record of a life, and find there nothing better than pride, misanthropy, falsehood, hatred of men—rebellion against God. It is a sweet experience to taste, however tremblingly, the consolations of the Friend who invites the weary and heavy-laden to draw near and learn of Him. In His strength—not in that feebleness I once called power—have I resolved to lead a new life. Of the causes which have contributed to produce this change, we will speak more at length when we meet.

"'When we meet!' Lewis, will you, can you forget your manifold wrongs and come back to me? I do not plead, now, 'for the sake of our child.' Her sinless soul henceforth can know no pain or woe. God saw that I was not worthy of her, and He took her. In the earlier weeks of my selfish mourning, I had no thought of your bereavement. Latterly, I have longed to comfort you, for I know that your heart is riven by this stroke. She was your joy, as she was my angel of peace. Her loss is our common sorrow. Shall it not draw us together? Yet, as I have said, our estrangement cannot now affect her. Thoughtless of evil, she passed away. Had she lived, the Omniscient only knows what grief and mortification might have darkened her pathway. Nor do I desire a reconciliation as a shield from the world's sneer or ban. I hold its applause and its censure alike cheaply. In prosperity, its favors were painted, tasteless fruit; in adversity, it would have fed my starving heart with husks. But for my sake—by the thought of my late and sore repentance; by the remorse that must gnaw my spirit, when I remember your noble trust in me, your unswerving fidelity, your generous love and my base requital of it all; by the sorrow that never leaves me by day or by night—forgive me, and return to the home we have both forsaken! I will serve you very faithfully, my husband! I have gained other and higher views of the marriage relation within a short time past. However presumptuously I may have assumed its responsibilities, however unworthily I performed its duties in former days, I would enter upon our re-engagement with a solemn sense of what I owe to you and to Him who united us. You must have despised me at our parting, and since. Perhaps you have come to think of me with dislike as well as contempt. I will bear this—grievous though the burden will be—as a part of my righteous punishment. I will never murmur—never, even in thought, accuse you of unjust harshness, if you will grant me the opportunity to make what amends I can for all you have lost and suffered through my fault."

Sarah was still far from strong; and wearied as much by the intensity of her feelings as by the manual effort of writing, she laid the pen down, and leaned back in the cushioned chair. Her table stood in the parlor beneath the window overlooking the river. The room was prim and clean, as of yore, with its straight lines of chairs; its shining specks of mirrors; the grim black profiles above the mantel, and the green boughs in the fireplace. The outer scene was in its general features, that which the girl had surveyed, with pleased surprise, the July evening of her arrival here two years ago.

Only two years! The sufferings and life-lessons of twenty had been crowded into that brief space. The meadows were growing sere, as if scorching winds had swept over them, and the stream reflected truthfully, yet, one could have fancied, sadly, the changing foliage fringing its borders. But the sky, with its tender blue and its fleecy clouds, ever shifting, yet ever retaining their likeness to one another—the river's smooth, steady flow, were the same; fit emblems both of them of counsels which are mercy and truth through all their workings; of love that abideth forever!

The train of thought was replete with refreshing to the spirit that was striving, in prayer and watchfulness, to adhere to the right, to accept, with meek submission, all that her cup yet held of pungent or nauseous lees. There was no affectation in the humble tone of her letter. She would not begin it until she had mastered the stubborn remnant of her native pride. It should be nothing to her that her husband had wilfully separated himself from her, and refused her overtures of reconcilement. If this was unkindness it was all she could reproach him with in the course of time they had spent together. He had been a true friend, an honorable protector, and dimly still, but more justly than ever before, she perceived that into his love for her there had entered none of the merely prudential considerations, the cool calculations, wherewith she used to account for his choice of herself as a helpmeet. Where, in the world's heartless circles, could she point out another wife as much indulged, as much honored in public and in private, as she once was by him? Mournfully, if not lovingly, she dwelt upon the countless evidences of his cordial fulfillment, in letter and in spirit, of his part of their mutual engagement, with something of the sinking heart the alchemist may have felt when, after he had, by a mechanical and habitual fling of his arm, tossed the eagerly-sought philosopher's stone into the sea as a worthless pebble, he discovered that the divining steel he held had been changed to gold by its touch.

To whom of us has not an experience similar to this come? It may be that the eyes which once besought affection with dumb and disregarded eloquence are closed and rayless for all future time; the lips that told, with modest frankness, how dear we were to hearts we cared not then to win, are now but silent dust. Or, perchance, grieved by indifference, repelled by unkindness, those hearts have sought and found in other loves solace for the pain we, in our blindness inflicted. It matters little whether they be dead to all the world, or only to us. In either case, the longing and despair of our lonely lives are rendered the more unendurable from the flash of tardy truth that shows us, side by side with our actual poverty of heart riches, the tranquil beauty of the pictured "might have been."

Aunt Sarah had gone on a visit to a neighbor; the hired girl was in the distant wash-house; and Charley considered it his duty to linger within easy reach of his cousin, should she need him for any purpose. To guard her from all chance of intrusion, he stationed himself on the front porch steps, with his book on his knee. For an hour he read on uninterruptedly; then, glancing up as he turned a leaf, he saw a gentleman coming down the gravel walk. He looked thin and anxious, and his restless eye wandered from door to windows, as in expectation of seeing some one beside the boy. With a ready apprehension of his infirmity, only to be accounted for by some prior knowledge of the person he saluted, he took from his pocket a card, which he presented before he shook hands with the silent host. Charley's intelligent face was one beam of pleasure as he read, and his warm grasp showed his sympathy in the happiness he fancied was in store for his cousin. Inviting the guest by a gesture to follow him, he went softly to the parlor-door, tapped lightly—too lightly, indeed, to attract the notice of the musing occupant of the room, then drew back the bolt, admitted the stranger, and delicately withdrew.

Sarah heard the door open and Charley's retreating footsteps, and, supposing that he had peeped in to see that she was comfortable and wanted for nothing, she did not look around. The intruder stood still one step within the room, as if unable to advance or speak. The languid attitude of the figure before him, so unlike the self-poise and quiet energy of her former deportment, her black dress, even the wasted hands dropped so wearily upon her lap, told of the storm that had passed over her, the utter revolution in her life and nature. A struggling sigh he could not repress broke from the gazer's breast, and Sarah turned hastily towards him. She did not swoon, as he feared she would. A thrill, like an electric shock, shook her from head to foot; a wild inquiry looked from her eyes; a question or the reality of the appearance, succeeding so closely to—did it grow out of her revery?

Lewis put this imagination to flight.

"Sarah!" he said, pressing in his the hands she extended mutely. "They told me you were lost, and I hurried home to find you. I could not wait for your permission to come to you, when I learned in New York that I had a living wife! The loss of the child was heavy enough; but this"—He could say no more.

"I am thankful! I am glad that you are here!" A faint, beautiful smile shone over her wan features. "And our baby, Lewis! We must remember that she is an angel now!"