ich we look
on the handwriting of the dead, however personally unknown, affected
me. This young man I had seen, though seldom; and I easily connected
the memoir before me with the memory of his dark, curling hair, his
olive complexion, and the graceful dignity of his manner. I saw his
bright eye dim, the dew of suffering on his brow, his cheek pale with
anguish of heart and body, and the last flicker of his glorious light
going out in darkness.

"From these thoughts I was roused by a sudden and deep groan; it
seemed near me, and I sprung to my feet. Bells rang; there was a rush
on the staircaise--a shriek--another rush--the opening of doors
wildly; all this was in a moment--in the moment I ran out of my room
toward Mary's where an undefined and terrible fear taught me to look.

"You will guess what met my appalled gaze. Mr. Gardner, who had
returned from a journey while I was reading in my own room, hastened
up stairs to see Mary. At the moment he entered, she had completed the
act which terminated her life. He received in his arms the lifeless
body. The suffering soul still hovered unconsciously. We believe that
God who made us, alone can try us, and He who knew all the wo that
'wrought like madness in her brain,' can both pity and forgive."

A deep silence followed Madame Stanwood's relation. Alice and Louise
were thinking how little such an experience could have been guessed
from Mr. Gardner's exterior.

"I wonder," said Louisa at last, "if he ever knew he cause of Mary's
death--did you give him the manuscript, grandmother?"

"Well--what _should_ I have done?"

"Oh! I would have given it to him! I would have rejoiced to see him
one hour feeling all the agony which poor Mary had felt so long!"

"That is very natural, my child, for you to say; and, I confess, when
I saw him first--his clothes covered with his wife's life-blood, and
her marble face on his shoulder; when I saw _his_ calmness, his
complete self-possession, the directions he gave for the physician,
all the time keeping his hand so pressed on the wound, that no more
blood should flow; when I saw him hold her till the surgeon closed the
wound, and then place his hand on the heart, and watch its beating, if
happily life might yet linger there; when I saw this, I longed to say,
'thou cold-hearted being! she is beyond the chill of thine icy
love--care not for her! the grave is softer and warmer than thou art!'

"But life had gone out. Not, however, til