Mr. Howland paused, and approached the bed on which lay his pale exhausted wife, just awakened from her death-like unconsciousness.

“No, Esther.  He is not dead,” was calmly replied.

“Is he badly hurt”?

The mother held her breath for a reply.

“Yes, badly, I fear,” answered Mr. Howland, in the same calm voice.

“Will he live?” almost gasped the mother.

“God only knows,” replied Mr. Howland.  Then glancing his eyes upward piously, he added, “If it be His will to remove him, I—­”

“Oh, Andrew! don’t say that!” quickly exclaimed the mother.  “Don’t say that!”

“Yes, Esther, I will say it,” returned Mr. Howland, in a steady voice.  “If it be His good pleasure to remove him, I will not murmur.  He will be safer there than here.”

“Oh, my poor, poor boy!” sobbed Mrs. Howland.  “My poor, poor boy!” To think that he should come to this?  Oh, it was wrong to send him off as he was sent! to punish him so severely for a little thing.  Heaven knows, he had suffered enough, unjustly, without having this added!”

“Esther!” exclaimed Mr. Howland, “this from you!”

The distressed mother, in the anguish of her mind, had given utterance to her feelings, with scarce a thought as to who was her auditor.  The sternly uttered words of her husband subdued her into silence.

“I did not expect this from you, Esther,” continued Mr. Howland, severely, “and at such a time.”

And he stood looking down upon the mother’s pale face with a rebuking expression of countenance.  Mrs. Howland endured his gaze only for a few moments, and then buried her face in the bed-clothes.  Her husband, as his eyes remained fixed upon her form, saw that it was agitated by slight convulsions, and he knew that she was striving to suppress the sobs in which her heart was seeking an utterance.  For a little while he stood looking at her, and then retired, without speaking, from the chamber, and sought the one where the physician was yet engaged with Andrew.  The lad was insensible when he left him a short time before; now signs of returning animation were visible.

“Mother!—­mother!  Where is mother?” he at last said, opening his eyes, and glancing from face to face of those who were gathered around him.

“You have nearly killed your mother,” replied.  Mr. Howland, expressing, without reflection, the feeling of anger toward the lad that was still in his heart.

An instant change was visible in the countenance of Andrew; a change that caused the physician to turn suddenly from his patient and say, in a low, severe tone—­

“Sir!  Do you wish to murder your child?”

Mr. Howland felt the rebuke, yet did not his eyes sink for a moment beneath the steady gaze of the physician, who, after a moment’s reflection, added—­

“Pray, sir, don’t speak to your child in this way at the present time.  It may be as much as his life is worth.  If he have done wrong, his punishment has been severe enough, Heaven knows!  How is his mother?”