Is our life a sun, that it should radiate light and heat forever? Do not the calmest and brightest days of autumn show clouds, that drift their ragged edges over the golden disk, and bear down swift with their weight of vapors, until the sun's whole surface is shrouded; and you can see no shadow of tree or flower upon the land, because of the greater and gulping shadow of the cloud?

Will not life bear me out; will not truth, earnest and stern, around me make good the terrible imagination that now comes swooping, heavily and darkly, upon my brain?

You are living in a little village not far away from the city. It is a graceful and luxurious home that you possess. The holly and the laurel gladden its lawn in winter; and bowers of blossoms sweeten it through all the summer. You know each day of your return from the town, where first you will catch sight of that graceful figure flitting like a shadow of love beneath the trees; you know well where you will meet the joyous and noisy welcome of stout Frank, and of tottling Nelly. Day after day and week after week they fail not.

A friend sometimes attends you; and a friend to you is always a friend to Madge. In the city you fall in once more with your old acquaintance Dalton,—the graceful, winning, yet dissolute man that his youth promised. He wishes to see your cottage home. Your heart half hesitates; yet it seems folly to cherish distrust of a boon companion in so many of your revels.

Madge receives him with that sweet smile which welcomes all your friends. He gains the heart of Frank by talking of his toys and of his pigeons; and he wins upon the tenderness of the mother by his attentions to the child. Even you repent of your passing shadow of dislike, and feel your heart warming toward him as he takes little Nelly in his arms and provokes her joyous prattle.

Madge is unbounded in her admiration of your friend: he renews, at your solicitation, his visit: he proves kinder than ever; and you grow ashamed of your distrust.

Madge is not learned in the arts of a city life; the accomplishments of a man-of-the world are almost new to her; she listens with eagerness to Dalton's graphic stories of foreign fÊtes and luxury; she is charmed with his clear, bold voice, and with his manly execution of little operatic airs.

----She is beautiful,—that wife who has made your heart whole by its division,—fearfully beautiful! And she is not cold, or impassive: her heart, though fond and earnest, is yet human;—we are all human. The accomplishments and graces of the world must needs take hold upon her fancy. And a fear creeps over you that you dare not whisper,—that those graces may cast into the shade your own yearning and silent tenderness.

But this is a selfish fear, that you think you have no right to cherish. She takes pleasure in the society of Dalton,—what right have you to say her—nay? His character indeed is not altogether such as you could wish; but will it not be selfish to tell her even this? Will it not be even worse, and show taint of a lurking suspicion, which you know would wound her grievously? You struggle with your distrust by meeting him more kindly than ever; yet at times there will steal over you a sadness, which that dear Madge detects, and sorrowing in her turn, tries to draw away from you by the touching kindness of sympathy. Her look and manner kill all your doubt; and you show that it is gone, and piously conceal the cause by welcoming in gayer tones than ever the man who has fostered it by his presence.

Business calls you away to a great distance from home: it is the first long parting of your real manhood. And can suspicion, or a fear, lurk amid those tearful embraces? Not one,—thank God,—not one!

Your letters, frequent and earnest, bespeak your increased devotion; and the embraces you bid her give to the sweet ones of your little flock, tell of the calmness and sufficiency of your love. Her letters too are running over with affection;—what though she mentions the frequent visits of Dalton, and tells stories of his kindness and attachment? You feel safe in her strength; and yet—yet there is a brooding terror, that rises out of your knowledge of Dalton's character.

And can you tell her this; can you stab her fondness, now that you are away, with even a hint of what would crush her delicate nature?

What you know to be love, and what you fancy to be duty, struggle long; but love conquers. And with sweet trust in her, and double trust in God, you await your return. That return will be speedier than you think.

You receive one day a letter: it is addressed in the hand of a friend, who is often at the cottage, but who has rarely written to you. What can have tempted him now? Has any harm come near your home? No wonder your hands tremble at the opening of that sheet; no wonder that your eyes run like lightning over the hurried lines. Yet there is little in them, very little. The hand is stout and fair. It is a calm letter, a friendly letter; but it is short, terribly short. It bids you come home—"at once!"

----And you go. It is a pleasant country you have to travel through; but you see very little of the country. It is a dangerous voyage, perhaps, you have to make; but you think very little of the danger. The creaking of the timbers, and the lashing of the waves, are quieting music compared with the storm of your raging fears. All the while you associate Dalton with the terror that seems to hang over you; and yet, your trust in Madge is true as Heaven!

At length you approach that home: there lies your cottage resting sweetly upon its hill-side; and the autumn winds are soft; and the maple-tops sway gracefully, all clothed in the scarlet of their frost-dress. Once again as the sun sinks behind the mountain with a trail of glory, and the violet haze tints the gray clouds like so many robes of angels, you take heart and courage, and with firm reliance on the Providence that fashions all forms of beauty, whether in heaven or in heart, your fears spread out, and vanish with the waning twilight.

She is not at the cottage-door to meet you; she does not expect you; and yet your bosom heaves, and your breathing is quick. Your friend meets you, and shakes your hand.—"Clarence," he says, with the tenderness of an old friend,—"be a man!"

Alas, you are a man;—with a man's heart, and a man's fear, and a man's agony! Little Frank comes bounding toward you joyously—yet under traces of tears:—"Oh, papa, mother is gone!"

----"Gone!" And you turn to the face of your friend; it is well he is near by, or you would have fallen.

He can tell you very little; he has known the character of Dalton; he has seen with fear his assiduous attentions—tenfold multiplied since your leave. He has trembled for the issue: this very morning he observed a travelling carriage at the door;—they drove away together. You have no strength to question him. You see that he fears the worst: he does not know Madge so well as you.

----And can it be? Are you indeed widowed with that most terrible of widowhoods? Is your wife living, and yet—lost! Talk not to such a man of the woes of sickness, of poverty, of death; he will laugh at your mimicry of grief.

----All is blackness; whichever way you turn, it is the same; there is no light; your eye is put out; your soul is desolate forever! The heart by which you had grown up into the full stature of joy and blessing, is rooted out of you, and thrown like something loathsome, at which the carrion dogs of the world scent and snuffle!

They will point at you, as the man who has lost all that he prized; and she has stolen it, whom he prized more than what was stolen! And he, the accursed miscreant——. But no, it can never be! Madge is as true as Heaven!

Yet she is not there: whence comes the light that is to cheer you?

----Your children?

Ay, your children,—your little Nelly,—your noble Frank,—they are yours,—doubly, trebly, tenfold yours, now that she, their mother, is a mother no more to them forever!

Ay, close your doors; shut out the world; draw close your curtains; fold them to your heart,—your crushed, bleeding, desolate heart! Lay your forehead to the soft cheek of your noble boy;—beware, beware how you dampen that damask cheek with your scalding tears: yet you cannot help it; they fall—great drops—a river of tears, as you gather him convulsively to your bosom!

"Father, why do you cry so?" says Frank, with the tears of dreadful sympathy starting from those eyes of childhood.

----"Why, papa?"—mimes little Nelly.

----Answer them, if you dare! Try it;—what words—blundering, weak words—choked with agony—leading nowhere—ending in new and convulsive clasps of your weeping, motherless children!

Had she gone to her grave, there would have been a holy joy, a great and swelling grief indeed,—but your poor heart would have found a rest in the quiet churchyard; and your feelings, rooted in that cherished grave, would have stretched up toward Heaven their delicate leaves, and caught the dews of His grace, who watcheth the lilies. But now,—with your heart cast underfoot, or buffeted on the lips of a lying world,—finding no shelter and no abiding place!—alas, we do guess at infinitude only by suffering!

----Madge, Madge! can this be so? Are you not still the same sweet, guileless child of Heaven?