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 tality. Let me think I have mended the lot of one human being; accept of such assistance as I have power to offer; do this for my sake, if not for your own, that, when these evils arise, which you prophesy perhaps too truly, I may not have to reflect, that the hours of my happier time have been passed altogether in vain."

The old man answered with a broken voice, and almost without addressing himself to the young lady.

"Yes, 'tis thus thou should'st think—'tis thus thou should'st speak, if ever human speech and thought kept touch with each other! They do not—they do not—Alas! they cannot. And yet—wait here an instant—stir not till my return." He went to his little garden, and returned with a half-blown rose. "Thou hast made me shed a tear, the first which has wet my eye-lids for many a year; for that good deed receive this token of gratitude. It is but a common rose; pre-