be attended to. Certainly this was all that he could desire, but he
would have liked to feel that his pleasure or displeasure was a
matter of more consequence than it now appeared to be.

And yet the warm affections of the heart were not all dead. They
slumbered--were chilled, paralyzed, starving for want of their
proper and natural nourishment, but there was still life, and there
were times when the spirit again thrilled with rapture, as the
loving arms of childhood were twined around the mother's neck, or
the curly head rested upon her bosom.

But to the little ones, as to others, there was the same cold
uniformity of manner, a want of that endearing tenderness which
forms so close a tie between mother and child. Their health, and the
cultivation of their minds, were never neglected, but the education
of the heart remained uncared for, and the spot which should have
bloomed with good and true affection, was but a wilderness of weeds.

The two eldest children were promising boys of seven and nine years
old. Full of health, and buoyant, although constantly repressed
spirits, they thought not and cared not for aught save the supply of
their bodily wants; but with the third child, the gentle Eva, it was
far otherwise. From infancy her little frame had been so frail and
delicate, that it seemed as if the spirit was constantly struggling
to leave its earthly tenement; but her fifth year was rapidly
approaching, and still she lingered a blessed minister of love in
that cheerless home.

How wistfully she gazed upon the mother's face as she unweariedly
performed the many little offices necessary for her comfort, but