his to that wealth of which
he is so proud, and that eminence which it makes him giddy to stand
on? No, Dumiger, you were in the right; and come what may, you will
feel proud of your decision and self-denial."

"It was you who decided for me," replied Dumiger, as he pressed her
lips fondly to his own.

He toiled throughout the day, and the dusk was settling over the town
when the last wheel was finished and the clock was completed.

CHAPTER IV.

It was late in the evening of the same day. Marguerite and Dumiger
were sitting by the fire together. The fire burnt so brightly that
it was not necessary to light the candles. Marguerite, with her eyes
closed and half reposing in Dumiger's arms, was enjoying all the
happiness which the sense of returning affection gives. The night was
somewhat changed since they first sat there. The rain beat against the
casement, and the wind whistled down the chimney. The more it rained
and blew, the closer crept Marguerite to Dumiger's side. It was
a picture of comfort; of that comfort which, alas! is so easily
destroyed by the breath of tyranny. It was a type of the many hearths
which are covered with ruins when the trumpet sounds through the city
and the tocsin rings to arms; when war or rebellion sweeps like a
pestilence, not alone over the ruins of palaces and of senate-houses,
but over the abodes of the humble, where every room can tell a tale of
affection and toil.

There was a knock at Dumiger's door, which made Marguerite start and
called all the color into her cheeks.

There was something ominous in the knock. It was a short, quick,
clear, and decisive knock. It was the knock of a man in authority; of
one who felt that although standing on the outside of the door, he had
a right to be within. Marguerite and Dumiger both looked at the fire,
as though they could read in its confused shapes the reason of this
interruption; but the result could not have been very satisfactory,
for neither spoke, while reluctantly Dumiger rose to open the dour,
and Marguerite followed his movements with intense anxiety.

The truth is that people are never thoroughly comfortable and happy
without a sense of the uncertainty of human happiness stealing over
them. We speak of those whose lives are not a succession of parties
of pleasure, of soft dreams and golden fulfillments--to such favored
ones all sense of happiness is deadened by satiety--but they who toil
through long, long days, and are ble