Gradually, now, the flame that had well-nigh gone out, kindled up again, but so slowly, that for many hours the mother and sisters were in doubt whether it were really brightening or not.  The fever that had continued for several days, exhausting the energies of the young man’s system, had let go its hold, because scarcely enough vital energy remained for it to subsist upon.  In its subsidence, life trembled on the verge of extinction.  But there was yet sufficient stamina for it to rally upon; and it did rally, and gradually, but very slowly, gained strength.

In an earnest spirit of thankfulness for this restoration of Alfred, did the mother and sisters look up to the Giver of all good, and with tearful devotion pray that there might ensue a moral as well as a physical restoration.  For years, they had not felt towards him the deep and yearning tenderness that now warmed their bosoms.  They longed to rescue him, not for their sakes, but for his own, from the horrible pit and the miry clay into which he had fallen.

“O, if we could but save him, sister!” Anna said, as she sat conversing with Mary, after all doubt of his recovery had been removed.  “If we could only do some. thing to restore our brother to himself, how glad I should be!”

“I would do anything in my power,” Mary replied, “and sacrifice everything that it was right to sacrifice, if, by so doing, I could help Alfred to conquer his besetting evils.  I cannot tell you how I feel about it.  It seems as if it would break my heart to have him return again into his old habits of life:  and yet, what have we to found a hope upon, that he will not so return?”

“I feel just as you do about it, Mary,” her sister said.  “The same yearning desire to save him, and the same hopelessness as to the means.”

“There is one way, it seems to me, in which we might influence him.”

“What is that, Mary?”

“Let us manifest towards him, fully, the real affection that we feel; perhaps that may awaken a chord in this own bosom, and thus lead him, for our sakes, to enter upon a new course of life.”

“We can at least try, Mary.  It can do no harm, and may result in good.”

With the end of his reformation in view, the two sisters, during his convalescence, attended him with the most assiduous and affectionate care.  The moment Anna would come home from the store at night, she would repair with a smiling countenance to his bedside, and although usually so fatigued as to be compelled to rally her spirits with an effort, she would seem so interested and cheerful and active to minister in some way to his pleasure, that Alfred began to look forward every day as the evening approached, with a lively interest, for her return.  This Mary observed, and it gave her hope.

Three weeks soon passed away, when Alfred was so far recovered as to be able to walk out.

“Do not walk far, brother,” Mary said, laying her hand gently upon his arm, and looking him with affectionate earnestness in the face.  “You are very weak, and the fatigue might bring on a relapse.”