new-born hope. The wife of his youth was to be restored to him!

He made arrangements to take her home, but alas! they were never destined
to be carried into effect. The secret fears of the physician were
realized even sooner than he had expected. The approach of dissolution
had dissolved the clouds so long hanging over the mind of Caroline
Trevlyn. She lived only two days after the coming of her husband, and
died in his arms, happy in the belief that she was going to her son.

Mr. Trevlyn returned home, a changed being. All his asperity of temper
was gone; he was as gentle as a child. Whole days he would sit in the
chair where his wife used to sit in the happy days of her young wifehood,
speaking to no one, smiling sometimes to himself, as though he heard
some inner whisperings which pleased him.

One day he roused himself seemingly, and sent for Mr. Speedwell, his
attorney, and Dr. Drake, his family physician. With these gentlemen he
was closeted the entire forenoon; and from that time forward, his hold on
the world and its things seemed to relax.

One morning, when Margie went to take his gruel up to him--a duty she
always performed herself--she found him sitting in his arm-chair, wide
awake, but incapable of speech or motion.

The physician, hastily summoned, confirmed her worst fears. Mr. Trevlyn
had been smitten with paralysis. He was in no immediate danger, perhaps;
he might live for years, but was liable to drop away at any moment. It
was simply a question of time.

Toward the close of the second day after his attack, the power of speech