tower they had not yet discovered, nor another close beside it, the top of
which was never seen, nor could be, for the highest clouds of heaven
clustered continually around it. The rain fell continuously, though not
heavily, without; and within, too, there were clouds from which dropped
the tears which are the rain of the spirit. All the good of life seemed
for the time departed, and their souls lived but as leafless trees that
had forgotten the joy of the summer, and whom no wind prophetic of spring
had yet visited. They moved about mechanically, and had not strength
enough left to wish to die.

"The next day the clouds were higher, and a little wind blew through such
loopholes in the turrets as the false improvements of the inmates had not
yet filled with glass, shutting out, as the storm, so the serene visitings
of the heavens. Throughout the day, the brother took various opportunities
of addressing a gentle command, now to one and now to another of his
family. It was obeyed in silence. The wind blew fresher through the
loopholes and the shattered windows of the great rooms, and found its way,
by unknown passages, to faces and eyes hot with weeping. It cooled and
blessed them.--When the sun arose the next day, it was in a clear sky.

"By degrees, everything fell into the regularity of subordination. With
the subordination came increase of freedom. The steps of the more youthful
of the family were heard on the stairs and in the corridors more light and
quick than ever before. Their brother had lost the terrors of aspect
produced by his confinement, and his commands were issued more gently, and
oftener with a smile, than in all their previous history. By degrees his
presence was universally felt through the house. It was no surprise to any
one at his studies, to see him by his side when he lifted up his eyes,
though he had not before known that he was in the room. And although some
dread still remained, it was rapidly vanishing before the advances of a