ntenance became troubled, and her
finely-pencilled brows knit, as if with an inward sense of physical
pain. William, her father, her mother, each successively addressed her,
but to no purpose. Though a slight change had taken place, they could
not succeed in awakening her reason to a perception of the circumstances
in which she was placed. They only saw that the unity of her thought, or
of the image whose beauty veiled the faculties of her mind was broken,
and that some other memory, painful in its nature, had come in to
disturb the serenity of her unreal happiness; but this, which ought
to have given them hope, only alarmed them the more. The father, while
these tender and affecting experiments were tried, sat beside her, his
eyes laboring under a weight of deep and indescribable calamity, and
turning from her face to the faces of those who attempted to recall her
reason, with a mute vehemence of sorrow which called up from the depths
of their sister's misery a feeling of compassion for the old man whom
she had so devotedly loved.

"My father's heart is breaking," said William, groaning aloud, and
covering his face with his hands. "Father, your face frightens me
more than Jane's;--don't, father, don't. She is young,--it will pass
away--and father dear where is your reliance upon her--upon her aid!"

"Dear Henry," said his wife, "you should be our support. It is the
business of your life to comfort and sustain the afflicted."

"Papa," said Agnes, "come with me for a few minutes, until you recover
the shock which--which----"

She stopped, and dropping her head upon the knees of her smiling and
apparently happy sister, wept aloud.

"Agnes--Agnes," said William, (they were all in tears except her father)
"Agnes, I am ashamed of you;"--yet his own cheeks were wet, and his
voice faltered. "Father, come with me for awhile. You will when alone
for a few minutes, bethink you of your duty--for it is your duty to bear
this not only as becomes a Christian man, but a Christian minister, who
is bound to give us example as well as precept."

"I know it, William, I know it;--and you shall witness my fortitude, my
patience, my resignation under this--this-----. I will retire. But is
she not--alas! I should say, was she not my youngest and my dearest! You
admit yourselves she was the best."

"Father, come," said William.

"Dear father--dear papa, go with him," said Agnes.

"My father," said Maria, "as he said to _her_, will be