_ I had never seen before. Again my
eyelids closed, and I seemed passing away, where, I knew not; yet
consciousness remained. I felt soft, trembling kisses breathed upon my
face, and tears too, mingling with their balm. With a delicious
perception of tenderness, watchfulness, and love, I sunk into a deep,
deep sleep.

When I awoke, the silver lustre of an astral lamp, shaded by a screen,
glimmered in the apartment and quivered like moonbeams in the white
drapery that curtained the bed. I knew where I was,--I was in my own
chamber, and the lady who sat by my bedside, and whose profile I beheld
through the parted folds of the curtains, was Mrs. Linwood. And yet, how
strange! It must have been years since we had met, for the lovely brown
of her hair was now a pale silver gray, and age had laid its withering
hand on her brow. With a faint cry, I ejaculated her name, and attempted
to raise my head from the pillow, but in vain. I had no power of motion.
Even the exertion of uttering her name was beyond my strength. She rose,
bent over me, looked earnestly and long into the eyes uplifted to her
face, then dropping on her knees and clasping her hands, her spirit went
upwards in silent prayer.

As thus she knelt, and I gazed on her upturned countenance, shaded by
that strange, mournful, silver cloud, my thoughts began to shape
themselves slowly and gradually, as the features of a landscape through
dissolving mists. They trembled as the foliage trembles in the breeze
that disperses the vapors. Images of the past gained distinctness of
outline and coloring, and all at once, like the black hull, broken mast,
and rent sails of a wrecked vessel, one awful scene rose before me. The
face, like that of the angel of death, the sound terrible as the
thunders of doom, the bleeding body that my arms encircled, the
destroying husband,--the victim brother,--all came back to me;
life,--memory,--grief,--horror,--all came back.

"Ernest! Richard!" burst in anguish from my feeble lips.

"They live! my child, they live!" said Mrs. Linwood, rising from her
knees and taking my passive hand in both hers; "but ask nothing now; you
have been very ill, you are weak as an infant; you must be tranquil,
patient, and submissive; and grateful, too, to a God of infinite mercy.
When you are stronger I will talk to you, but not now. You must yield
yourself to my guidance, in the spirit of an unweaned child."

"They live!" repeated I to myself, "my God, I b