In order not to disturb the quiet slumberer, Mrs. Fletcher sat down
by the bedside perfectly still. It was not very long before,
over-wearied as she was, sleep likewise stole over her senses. It
was daylight when she was awakened by hearing her name called.
Starting up, she met the face of her husband turned earnestly toward
her.

"Dear husband!" she exclaimed, "do you know me?"

"Yes, Mary. But how came you here?" he said, in a feeble voice.

"We will speak of that at some other time," she replied. "Enough
that I am here, where I ought to have been ten days ago. But that
was not my fault."

Fletcher was about to make some farther remark, when his wife placed
her finger upon his lips, and said--

"You must not talk, dear; your disease has just made a favourable
change, and your life depends upon your being perfectly quiet.
Enough for me to say that I know all, and love you just as well,
perhaps better. You are a weak, foolish man, Joseph," she added,
with a smile, "or else thought me a weak and foolish woman. But all
that we can settle hereafter. Thank God that I have found you; and
that you are, to all appearances, out of danger."

Aunt Prudence looked into Kate's face, and saw that tears were on
her cheeks.

"Would you have loved him less, Kate," she asked, "if he had been