t in such a
tone of heart-worship. Ernest loved with all the fond idolatry which she
had thought of late belonged not to man's affections; but he loved
another. Jealousy; the bitter consciousness of her own slighted love;
the memory of his vows; the crushing thought that she was nothing to him
now; that while he had been the life of her life, another had filled his
thoughts and ruled his being, created a wild tempest in her soul. All
was still around her. The sick man, the tired Ernest slept; and without,
not even the rustling of a leaf disturbed the repose of Nature. She
seemed to herself the only living thing in the universe; and to her,
life was torture. An hour passed in this still concentrated agony, and
she could endure it no longer; she must be up and doing; she would wake
Ernest; she would tell him the revelation she had made; upbraid him with
her blighted life, and leave him. Let him send for his Sophie; what did
she, the outcast, the rejected, there in his house?--why should she
nurse his father? She arose and approached again the couch of Ernest;
she was about to call to him, but she was arrested by the expression of
agony in his face. His brow was contracted, and as she continued to
gaze, low moans issued from his quivering lips. Ernest too was a
sufferer; how that thought softened the hard, cold, icy crust that had
been gathering around her heart! The bitterness of pride and jealousy
gave place to tenderer emotions. Tears gathered in her eyes, and
stealing softly back to her sheltered seat, she wept long and silently.

"In sorrow the angels are near;" and Meeta's heart was now full of
sorrow, not of anger. Sad must her life ever be, but what of that, if
Ernest could be happy? Perhaps he suffered for her; the good, true
Ernest. It might be that only in dreams he had told his love to Sophie,
bound to silence, painful silence, by his vows to her. She then could
make him happy, and was not that her first desire? If it were not, her
love was a low, selfish, unworthy love, and she would pray that it might
be purified. She did pray, not as she would have done an hour before, to
be taken out of the world, but that she might be made meet to do the
will of her FATHER while in the world. She prayed for herself, for
Ernest; and sweet peace stole into her heart, and before the morning
light came, she had resolved not to leave the old man who loved her,
during his few remaining days, yet not to keep Ernest in doubt of his