overpowering desire that, if life must be despaired of, consciousness might be restored once more. Another glance of tender recognition, another word spoken in the familiar tone which was such sweet music to loving hearts, was a coveted boon that would soften the anguish of the stroke, and be a hallowed memory through the coming years.
After a night of intense solicitude, when life struggled with death, as the morning dawned under a most propitious sky, and the sun was slowly gilding a feathery cloud in the oriont, reason returned, and Mrs. Claremont thrilled with joy upon hearing her name called as of old. "What day is it?" he enquired. On being informed that it was Thanksgiving morning, he drew his wife nearer to him, and with that peculiar smile which always lent a charm to his happiest moments, said, "Could a more lovely morning be desired to blend the last of earth with the first of heaven? Mourn not for me. In a few short years you will come to share with me the fulness of a love, beside which ours here on earth, pure and perfect as we thought it, is but the opening bud to the full blown rose." As the eyes of the dying man rested on his darling Rosalind, who had scarcely left his bedside during his illness, a momentary pang disturbed his serenity, and he closed them as if in prayer. Pale as a statue, she had maintained the most rigid composure through it all, watching every motion, and listening to every sound, trying to catch the faintest ray of hope. Not a tear came to her relief through those long watchful hours. The shadow of death hovered about her like the spectral
