burn; but when the image of Charles and Florence came up before her mind, her eyes were ready to overflow.  It was now that she remembered, with changed emotions, the cruel manner in which she had spurned Charles and the wife of his bosom.  A sigh struggled up from her heart, and she leaned down her face upon the table before which she was sitting.  Just at this time, a small sealed package was handed to her.  She broke it open carelessly; but its contents made her heart bound, coming as they did just at that crisis.  Under cover was a bank-bill amounting to one thousand dollars, and this memorandum—­“It is yours.”

Quickly turning to the direction, she read it over two or three times before satisfying herself that there was no mistake.  Then she examined the writing within and without closely, in order to ascertain, if possible, from whom the timely aid had come, but without arriving at any certain conclusion.

This incident caused a new train of thoughts to pass through the mind of Mrs. Linden.  It brought before her, she could not tell why, the image of her son Charles with greater distinctness than ever; and with that came thoughts of his wife, and regret that she had thrown her off with such cruel anger.  Acute pain of mind succeeded to this.  She saw more clearly her own position in that act, and felt deeply the wrong she had committed.

“I will write to my son at once and ask his forgiveness, and that of his wife, whom I have wronged,” she said, with a suddenly formed resolution.  But pride rushed up instantly.

“No, no,” it objected; “not now.  You should have done this before:  it is too late; they will not believe you sincere.”

A painful conflict ensued, which continued with increasing violence until, in consequence of prolonged mental excitement, a slow nervous fever took hold of Mrs. Linden’s physical system, and in a short time reduced her to a very critical state.  Intelligence of this was conveyed to her son William, but, for some cause or other, neither himself nor wife visited her.  At the end of a week she was so low as to be considered in great danger; she, no longer recognised the person of her attendant, or appeared to be conscious of what was passing around her.

A letter from a friend, through whom he was kept informed of all that occurred to her, apprized Charles Linden of his mother’s critical situation.

“Florence,” said he to his sister, in reading the letter to her and his wife, “I think you and I should go to P—­immediately.  You can be mother’s nurse until she recovers, and then it may not be hard to reconcile all that is past.”

Ellen looked earnestly in the face of her husband; something was on her tongue, but she appeared to hesitate about giving it utterance.

“Does not that meet your approval?” asked Charles.

“Why may not I be the nurse?” was asked in hesitating tones.

“You!” said Charles, in a voice of surprise.  “That should be the duty of Florence.”