bodily I was lying on this bench, sleeping the stupid sleep of
intoxication; but morally and spiritually I was slipping over the
brink of an awful chasm. Bee, dearest Bee! dearest saving angel! it
was this little hand of yours that drew me back, so softly that I
scarcely knew I had been in danger of ruin until that danger was
past. And, Bee, since that day many days of storm have passed, but
the face of my saving angel has ever looked out from among the
darkest clouds a bright rainbow of promise. I did not perish in the
storm, because her sweet face ever looked down upon me!"

Bee did not attempt to reply; she could not; she sat with her
flushed and tearful eyes bent upon the ground.

"Love, do you know this token?" he inquired, in a voice shaking with
agitation, as he drew from his bosom a little wisp of white cambric
and laid it in her lap.

"It is my--my--" she essayed to answer, but her voice failed.

"It is your dear handkerchief," he said, as he took it, pressed it
to his lips, and replaced it in his bosom. "It is your dear
handkerchief! When you found me as you did, in your loving kindness
you laid it over my face--mine! so utterly unworthy to be so
delicately veiled! Oh, Bee, if I could express to you all I felt!
all I thought! when I recognized this dear token and so discovered
who it was that had sought me when I was lost, and dropped tears of
sorrow over me! and then covered my face from the blistering sun and
the stinging flies--if I could tell you all that I suffered and
resolved, then you would feel and know how earnest and sincere is
the heart that at last--at last, my darling, I lay at your beloved