affection; he would have sacrificed everything for her; and yet for years had he been compelled to see her toil for a portion of the bread that nourished her and her children.  He loved his little ones, with a yearning tenderness; the more fervently and passionately, now that he could no longer minister to their wants.  How could he meet them all on this evening, and see their dear faces brighten up on his entrance, when he could no longer earn them food, or provide them with comforts?  It was with a strong effort that he kept down his feelings. as he entered his home, now comprised in two rooms in the second story of an old house in Commerce street, where they had removed, to be nearer his place of business, the long walk having been too fatiguing for him, after standing behind the counter all day.

Mrs. Wilmer’s quick eye at once detected a change in the expression of her husband’s countenance, but she said nothing.  After tea, the children were all put to bed in the next room, and they were then alone.  Wilmer sat in deep thought by the table, shading his face with his sand when his wife came in from the chamber where she had been with the children.  Twining her arm round his neck, she bent over him, and said, in a tone of tender concern—­

“Why so thoughtful, Theodore?”

He did not reply for some moments, nor lift his head, and Constance was about to repeat her question in a more earnest voice, when a hot tear fell upon her hand.  She had seen him often sorely tried and painfully exercised, but had never known him to shed a tear.  There had always been a troubled silence in his manner when difficulties pressed upon him, but tears moistened not his eyes.  Well might her heart sink down in her bosom at that strange token of intense suffering.

“Dear Theodore!” she said, in a changed tone, “tell me what it is that troubles you!”

A shuddering sob was the only reply, as he leaned his head back upon her bosom.

“Say, dearest, what has happened?”

The tears now fell from his eyes like rain, and sob after sob shook his frame convulsively.

Constance waited in silence until the agitation subsided, and then gently urged him to tell her what it was that troubled him so painfully.

“I am broken in spirits now, Constance.  I am a weak child.  I have received the last blow, and manhood has altogether forsaken me.”

“Tell me! oh, tell me!  Theodore, all, all!  Do not distress me by further silence, or mystery!”

A pause of some minutes succeeded, during which Wilmer was making strong efforts to overcome his feelings.

“Constance,” he at length said, mournfully, “I have tried long, and much beyond my strength, to earn the small sum that it took to support our little ones; but nature has at last given way.  Here is the last dollar I shall probably ever earn, and now I shall be a burden upon you, eating the bread of my children, while they, poor things, will hunger for the morsel that nourishes me.  I do not wonder that manly feelings have passed away with my strength.  Constance, what shall we do?”