th a single hope.

And my heart beats high with a single hope,
Which has come on a sudden when unsought;
In all the wide world there is only scope
For a single hope and a single thought.
O why should a wide world have more than this?
When after all has been done and been said,
'Tis a single grief or a single bliss
That rekindles a life or strikes it dead.

Clasp'd in her arms, with her tears on my cheek,
Her kind husband warmly grasping my hand,
In statue-like calm, I move not nor speak--
A silent machine for one purpose plann'd.

'O white little face,' she tremblingly cries,
'It cannot be yours, that white little face;
O when did you get those far-seeking eyes?
And the stillness in lieu of girlish grace?'

And looking at me she drew back alarm'd,
She felt that _something_ divided us;
She, who lived the life of the happy charm'd,
And I, who am battling with fortune thus.

Out spake her husband--'I know what to do;
Put her to bed--she will wake by-and-by--
Then let her have, in the boudoir with you,
A hot cup of tea and thorough good cry.'

As a judge in court he summ'd up the whole;
I laugh'd my first laugh since the grief began;
For I thought, this is how a woman's soul
Is held at the hands of a worthy man!

I answer'd him with a sort of a scorn--
The least little bend from a haughty height--
'I left home last evening, was here at morn,
And shall be in Liverpool long ere night.'

They were startled, eager, anxious and kind
(They had read the papers and learn'd the fact),
But they question'd not, from the touch refin'd
Of a sweet good-nature that men call tact.

I told where he was--I trusted them both,
Sounding the depths of their souls in their eyes;
The man was too honest to need an oath,
And the woman too tender not to be wise.

They were ready to help with hand and heart
(And a kindness no balancing prudence bounds),
Fed me and petted me, let me depart,
And lent me at parting five hundred pounds.
We started as if for an airing gay,
No coachman or footman, not even Jane;
The husband drove us the whole of the way,
And saw me safe in the Liverpool train.
The tears of my friend lie wet on my cheek,
I pointed onward, and wistfully smil'd;
Her husband smil'd too, though he did not speak
And kiss'd me as if I had been his child.

Never a slumber the whole of the night,
N