of you to spare her all superfluous
agitation. 'Tell him,' said she, 'there is but one thing that can
unsettle the calmness of my mind; it is to see him wanting in Christian
resignation.'"

It would be painful to dwell on the anguish that followed this
communication. Mr. Draper realized, for the first time, the tenderness
and watchfulness that a character and constitution like his wife's
required. In the common acceptation of the word, he was an excellent
husband; yet, in his eager pursuit of wealth, he had left her to struggle
alone with many of the harassing cares of life. He had, by thinking
himself unable to accompany her, denied her the necessary recreation of
travelling; he had deprived her of her favorite residence in the city,
and when she turned her affections to Clyde, even there they found no
resting-place.

He recollected their unpropitious journey--the exposure to cold and
rain--that he had hurried on the invalids, till he had accomplished his
own purposes. One had already gone; the other was fast following.
Speculators have consciences and affections, and his were roused to
agony.

Frances shrunk not from the hour of death, which rapidly approached.
Howard and Charlotte were constantly with her. There was nothing gloomy
in her views. She considered this life as a passage to another; and saw
through the vista immortality and happiness. To Charlotte, she
bequeathed her daughter, and this faithful friend promised to watch over
her with a mother's care.

Many and long were her conversations with her husband--not on the subject
of her death, or arrangements after it should take place; but she was
earnest that her serenity, her high hopes, might be transferred to his
mind. She had often, in the overflowings of her heart, endeavored to
communicate to him her animated convictions of a future life. Those who
live constantly in the present think but little of the future. Mr.
Draper usually cut short the conversation, with the apparently devout
sentiment,--"I am quite satisfied on this subject;

'Whatever is, is right.'"

Now, however, when he realized that the being he most tenderly loved was
fast retreating from his view, he felt that there was a vast difference
between the reasonings of philosophy and the revelations of Christianity;
and, in the agony of his soul, he would have given worlds for the
assurance of a reunion. On this subject Frances dwelt; and he now
listened patiently, without