and look upon our child, how sound she sleeps! I have leaned over her
for the last hour, and tried to fancy it was you whom I watched, for
she has learned already your smile and has it even when she sleeps."

"She has cause to smile," said the husband, bitterly.

"She has, for she is yours! and even in poetry and humble hopes, that
is an inheritance which may well teach her pride and joy. Come, love,
the air is keen, and the damp rises to your forehead,--yet stay, till
I have kissed it away."

"Mine own love," said the student, as he rose and wound his arm round
the slender waist of his wife, "wrap your shawl closer over your
bosom, and let us look for one instant upon the night. I cannot sleep
till I have slaked the fever of my blood: the air has nothing of
coldness in its breath for me."

And they walked to the window and looked forth. All was hushed and
still in the narrow street; the cold gray clouds were hurrying fast
along the sky; and the stars, weak and waning in their light, gleamed
forth at rare intervals upon the mute city, like expiring watch-lamps
of the dead.

They leaned out and spoke not; but when they looked above upon the
melancholy heavens, they drew nearer to each other, as if it were
their natural instinct to do so whenever the world without seemed
discouraging and sad.

At length the student broke the silence; but his thoughts, which were
wandering and disjointed, were breathed less to her than vaguely and