Through the long night she quitted not the sufferer’s pillow, bathing his fevered brow, relieving his thirst, whispering comfort to his troubled spirit.  Soon after daybreak Philip sank into a quiet, refreshing sleep; and Lady Grange, feeling as if a mountain’s weight had been lifted from her heart, hurried to carry the good news to her husband.

She found him in the spacious saloon, pacing restlessly to and fro.  His brow was knit, his lips compressed; his disordered dress and haggard countenance showed that he, too, had watched the live-long night.

“He sleeps at last, Gilbert, thank God!” Her face brightened as she spoke; but there was no corresponding look of joy on that of her husband.

“Gilbert, the doctor assures me that there is every prospect of our dear boy’s restoration!”

“And to what is he to be restored?” said the father gloomily; “to poverty—­misery—­ruin!”

Lady Grange stood mute with surprise scarcely believing the evidence of her senses almost deeming that the words must have been uttered in a dream.  But it was no dream, but one of those strange, stern realities which we meet with in life.  Her husband indeed stood before her a ruined man!  A commercial crash, like those which have so often reduced the rich to poverty, coming almost as suddenly as the earthquake which shakes the natural world, had overthrown all his fortune!  The riches in which he had trusted had taken to themselves wings and flown away.

Here was another startling shock, but Lady Grange felt it far less than the first.  It seemed to her that if her son were only spared to her, she could bear cheerfully any other trial.  When riches had increased, she had not set her heart upon them; she had endeavoured to spend them as a good steward of God and to lay up treasure in that blessed place where there is no danger of its ever being lost.  Sir Gilbert was far more crushed than his wife was by this misfortune.  He saw his idol broken before his eyes, and where was he to turn for comfort?  Everything upon which his eye rested was a source of pain to him; for must he not part with all, leave all in which his heart had delighted, all in which his soul had taken pride?  He forgot that poverty was only forestalling by a few years the inevitable work of death!

The day passed wearily away.  Philip suffered much pain, was weak and low, and bitterly conscious how well he had earned the misery which he was called on to endure.  It was a mercy that he was experiencing, before it was too late, that thorns and snares are in the way of the froward.  He liked his mother to read the Bible to him, just a few verses at a time, as he had strength to bear it; and in this occupation she herself found the comfort which she needed.  Sir Gilbert, full of his own troubles, scarcely ever entered the apartment of his son.