beautifully tender in their expressions of love for me.  I was happy; but the days wore into weeks, and his return still delayed.  I began to feel anxious and fearful, when I received a letter from Chicago, saying he had been obliged to go to that city on business, and would be unavoidably detained.  He would like me to come to him, if it were not for fear of my being too delicate to bear the journey.  My parents would have been quite unwilling also, for the promise of the days lay before me, and with this new hope that it would not be so very long ere he would come, I was again contentedly happy.  The letters grew less frequent, and the days grew long, and when September came my little girl came too, and how I longed for her father to come.

“My parents telegraphed him of the event, saying also, ’Come, if possible—­Mary is in a fever of anxiety,’ but he did not come; the telegram was not replied to, and although dangerously ill, I lived.  Now the letters came no more, and I, still believing in his goodness, felt sure that he was either sick or dead.  My little Mabel lived one year.  Oh, how sweet she was! and one month after her death I received a letter asking why I was so silent, telling me of great trouble and overwhelming me with sorrow.  I answered kindly, but my father was convinced by this that he was a ‘villain,’ to use his own expression.  The fact of his not writing for so long, and then writing a letter almost of accusation against me, made me feel fearful, and as I looked back on my suffering, determined, if it were possible to some day know the truth.  My answer to the letter I speak of was received, and he again wrote, and this time told me a pitiful tale of the loss by fire of all his artist possessions, and his closing sentence was ’we may never meet again, for in the grave I hope to find refuge from want.  If you desire to answer this, write ‘without delay.  It is hard to bear poverty and want.’

“I felt almost wild, and gave father the letter, hoping to receive a generous donation from him, but my father said, ’Molly, darling, (that is my name at home), the villain lies! no, no, pet, not a cent.’  I cried myself ill, and sent him my wedding ring, a diamond, his gift, since which I have heard nothing.

“I told my father after it was gone, and if he had not loved me so much, I should have felt the power of angry words.  He was angry, but he thought of all I had suffered, and he took me right up in his arms, and cried over me.  ’Mollie, darling, it is too bad; you have a woman’s heart.  I would to God the man had never been born.

“I had a dear friend to whom I had confided all my sorrow—­a Virginia lady, married and living in Boston.  Her husband, Mr. Chadwick, is a merchant there, and every year she spends three or four months with her Southern friends.  One brother lives in Charleston, my home.  We have been attached to each other for years, and my father and mother love her dearly.  Three weeks ago she