ant warfare with the misery and suffering of his
fellow-creatures, and he was, in fact, able to make those about him happy
and prosperous. The poorest were dearest to his loving heart, and on his
estate across the lake he had collected none but the sick and wretched.
The care of the children was left to her, and the little ones clung to
her as if she were their mother. She had neither brother nor sister.--And
so the conversation turned on Alexander, of whom Agatha could never hear
enough.

And how proud was Melissa to speak of the bright young artist, who till
now had been the sun of her joyless life! There was much that was good to
be said about him: for the best masters rated his talent highly in spite
of his youth; his comrades were faithful; and none knew so well as he how
to cheer his father's dark moods. Then, there were many amiable and
generous traits of which she had been told, or had herself known. With
his very first savings, he had had the Genius with a reversed torch cast
in bronze to grace his mother's grave, and give his father pleasure. Once
he had been brought home half dead after saving a woman and child from
drowning, and vainly endeavoring to rescue another child. He might be
wild and reckless, but he had always been faithful to his art and to his
love for his family.

Agatha's eyes opened widely when Melissa told her anything good about her
brother, and she clung in terror to her new friend as she heard of her
excited orgy with her lover.

Scared as though some imminent horror threatened herself, she clasped
Melissa's hand as she listened to the tale of the dangers Alexander had
so narrowly escaped.

Such things had never before reached the ears of the girl in her retired
Christian home beyond the lake; they sounded to her as the tales of some
bold seafarer to the peaceful husbandman on whose shores the storm has
wrecked him.

"And do you know," she exclaimed, "all this seems delightful to me,
though my father, I am sure, would judge it hardly! When your brother
risks his life, it is always for others, and that is right--that is the
highest life. I think of him as an angel with a flaming sword. But you do
not know our sacred scriptures."

Then Melissa would hear more of this book, of which Andreas had
frequently spoken; but there was a knock at the door, and she sprang out
of bed.

Agatha did the same; and when a slave-girl had brought in fresh, cold
water, she insisted on handing her frien