aste, my daughter. I cannot leave to Richard the
sole task of ministering to the soul of my unhappy brother. His
conscience is quickened, his feeling softened, and it may be that the
day of grace is begun. His frame is weak and worn, his blood feverish,
and drop by drop is slowly drying in his veins. I never saw any one so
fearfully altered. Truly is it said, that 'the wages of sin is death.'
Oh! if after herding with the swine and feeding on the husks of earth,
he comes a repentant prodigal to his father's home, it matters not how
soon he passes from that living tomb."

My father's words were prophetic. The prisoner's wasted frame was
consuming slowly, almost imperceptibly, like steel when rust corrodes
it. Richard and my father were with him every day, and gathered round
him every comfort which the law permitted, to soften the horrors of
imprisonment. Not in vain were their labors of love. God blessed them.
The rock was blasted. The waters gushed forth. Like the thief on the
cross, he turned his dying glance on his Saviour, and acknowledged him
to be the Son of God. But it was long before the fiery serpents of
remorse were deadened by the sight of the brazen reptile, glittering
with supernatural radiance on the uplifted eye of faith. The struggle
was fearful and agonizing, but the victory triumphant.

Had he needed me, I would have gone to him, and I often pleaded
earnestly with my father to take me with him; but he said he did not
wish me to be exposed to such harrowing scenes, and that Richard
combined the tenderness of a daughter with the devotion of a son. Poor
Richard! his pale cheeks and heavy eyes bore witness to the protracted
sufferings of his father, but he bore up bravely, sustained by the hope
of his soul's emancipation from the bondage of sin.

The prisoner must have had an iron constitution. The wings of his spirit
flapped with such violence against its skeleton bars, the vulture-beak
of remorse dipping all the time into the quivering, bleeding heart, it
is astonishing how long it resisted even after flesh and blood seemed
wasted away. Day after day he lingered; but as his soul gradually
unsheathed itself, clearer views of God and eternity played upon its
surface, till it flashed and burned, like a sword in the sunbeams of
heaven.

At length he died, with the hand of his son clasped in his, the bible of
Theresa laid against his heart, and his brother kneeling in prayer by
his bedside. Death came soft