O my noble Frank--my faithful Frank--my _good_ Frank! so much better than myself--his standard in all things so much higher! This I can now see and say: if few women have suffered as I did in his loss, few have enjoyed what I did in his love.

It was a far better kind of love than common; I had no doubts about it or him: it was such a love as honoured, protected, and elevated, no less than it gladdened her to whom it was given.

Let me now ask, just at this moment, when my mind is so strangely clear,--let me reflect why it was taken from me?
For what crime was I condemned, after twelve months of bliss, to undergo thirty years of sorrow?
"I do not know," she continued after a pause: "I cannot--_cannot_ see the reason; yet at this hour I can say with sincerity, what I never tried to say before, Inscrutable God, Thy will be done! And at this moment I can believe that death will restore me to Frank.

I never believed it till now." "He is dead, then ?" I inquired in a low voice.
"My dear girl," she said, "one happy Christmas Eve I dressed and decorated myself, expecting my lover, very soon to be my husband, would come that night to visit me.

I sat down to wait.