Whose narrow fire
  Is shaken by the wind, and on whose edge
  Devouring darkness hovers.[5]

With eagerness one turns toward the east, with angry impatience one marks the unchequered darkness; the crowing of a cock, that sound of glee during day-time, comes wailing and untuneable—­the creaking of rafters, and slight stir of invisible insect is heard and felt as the signal and type of desolation.  Clara, overcome by weariness, had seated herself at the foot of her cousin’s bed, and in spite of her efforts slumber weighed down her lids; twice or thrice she shook it off; but at length she was conquered and slept.  Idris sat at the bedside, holding Evelyn’s hand; we were afraid to speak to each other; I watched the stars —­I hung over my child—­I felt his little pulse—­I drew near the mother—­again I receded.  At the turn of morning a gentle sigh from the patient attracted me, the burning spot on his cheek faded—­his pulse beat softly and regularly—­torpor yielded to sleep.  For a long time I dared not hope; but when his unobstructed breathing and the moisture that suffused his forehead, were tokens no longer to be mistaken of the departure of mortal malady, I ventured to whisper the news of the change to Idris, and at length succeeded in persuading her that I spoke truth.

But neither this assurance, nor the speedy convalescence of our child could restore her, even to the portion of peace she before enjoyed.  Her fear had been too deep, too absorbing, too entire, to be changed to security.  She felt as if during her past calm she had dreamed, but was now awake; she was

  As one
  In some lone watch-tower on the deep, awakened
  From soothing visions of the home he loves,
  Trembling to hear the wrathful billows roar;[6]

as one who has been cradled by a storm, and awakes to find the vessel sinking.  Before, she had been visited by pangs of fear—­now, she never enjoyed an interval of hope.  No smile of the heart ever irradiated her fair countenance; sometimes she forced one, and then gushing tears would flow, and the sea of grief close above these wrecks of past happiness.  Still while I was near her, she could not be in utter despair—­ she fully confided herself to me—­she did not seem to fear my death, or revert to its possibility; to my guardianship she consigned the full freight of her anxieties, reposing on my love, as a wind-nipped fawn by the side of a doe, as a wounded nestling under its mother’s wing, as a tiny, shattered boat, quivering still, beneath some protecting willow-tree.  While I, not proudly as in days of joy, yet tenderly, and with glad consciousness of the comfort I afforded, drew my trembling girl close to my heart, and tried to ward every painful thought or rough circumstance from her sensitive nature.