“How did he get the expression, Louis?”

“Oh, Emily, he remembered every outline of your face, and with the greatest ease defined them!  Then from time to time, I sat near and suggested here or there a change, until at last the work was perfected, which in all its beauty only tells the truth; you do not see yourself when your face lights up with glorious thought; the depth of your eyes was to me always a study, and this man, Emily, carries in his heart to-day the knowledge of your worth; he holds you and my little mother in fond remembrance.  His soul is purified by suffering, and this last visit I made him has given him strength to tell me his whole life.  When with a sigh he ended his story, he looked at me sorrowfully, and said: 

“’I suppose you will despise me now, but I feel that after all your kindness I must tell you, for it is right you should know.  Halbert, I have never told—­it is as well not to do so.’”

“Poor fellow,” I said, “and we knew it all before.”

“No, not all; his life has been a drama with wonderfully wild, sad scenes, and the great waves of his troubles and errors have, at times, driven him nearly crazy.  His eldest son is an artist like himself, and finely organized.  The other is in the West with an uncle of his mother’s.  Are you sorry I have done all this?  Speak, my beloved.”

My eyes told him that my heart was glad for the little comfort he could give this man whose perfidy had given me sorrow, and Clara said: 

“To help one lost lamb to find the fold is the blessed work my boy should always do.”

Aunt Hildy raised both hands at sight of our pictures, exclaiming: 

“Beautiful! beautiful!  Splendid!  Louis could not have brought us all a greater surprise, or one that would have been more highly valued.”

Little Emily patted and kissed the faces, and soon learned to designate them, “pit mam and mam Cla,” for pretty mamma and mamma Clara.

A few weeks after this we were sitting together in earnest conversation; the small, dark cloud hung over us that threatened civil war, and while I could hardly believe it possible, Louis and Clara said it must come.  Matthias came in of an errand, and sat down to hear us talk, and when father said, “Oh, no, we shall not have war; those Southerners are too lazy to fight,” he raised both his hands and exclaimed: 

“Excoose me fur conterdictin’ ye, but, Mr. Minot, ye dunno ’bout dat; dey’ll fight to de end ob time for dar stock.  A good many on ’em owns morin’ two hundred, an’ its money; it’s whar de living comes from.  Ef you gib ’em a chance dey’ll show you a big streak, an’ fight dey will for sartin.”

The words had hardly left his lips, when Clara said: 

“Oh! take me quick, dear boy!”

We all sprang to her side.  Ere Louis could put his arms around her, she fell from her chair like dead.

“Fainted!  Water!” said Louis.