On Valentine Hawkehurst the burden of an unlooked-for sorrow had weighed very heavily. To see this dear girl, who was the beginning, middle, and end of all his hopes, slowly fading before his eyes, was, of all agonies that could have fallen to his lot, the sharpest and most bitter. Not Ugolino sitting silent amidst his famishing children--not Helen, when she would fain that the tempest had swept her from earth's surface on that evil day when she was born--not Penelope, when she cried on Diana, the high-priestess of death, to release her from the weariness of her days--not Agamemnon, when the fatal edict had gone forth, and his fair young daughter looked into his face, and asked him if it was true that she was to die--not one of these typical mourners could have suffered a keener torture than that which rent this young man's heart, as he marked the stealthy steps of the Destroyer drawing nearer and nearer the woman he loved. Of all possible calamities, this was the last he had ever contemplated. Sometimes, in moments of doubt or despondency, he had thought it possible that poverty, the advice of friends, caprice or inconstancy on the part of Charlotte herself, should sever them. But among the possible enemies to his happiness he had never counted Death. What had Death to do with so fair and happy a creature as Charlotte Halliday? she who, until some two months before this time, might have been the divine Hygieia in person--so fresh was her youthful bloom, so buoyant her step, so bright her glances. Valentine's hardest penance was the necessity for the concealment of his anxiety. The idea that Charlotte's illness might be--nay, must be--for the greater part an affair of the nerves was always paramount in his mind. He and Diana had talked of the subject together whenever they found an opportunity for so doing, and had comforted themselves with the assurance that the nerves alone were to blame; and they were the more inclined to think this from the conduct of Dr. Doddleson, on that physician's visits to Miss Halliday. Mrs. Sheldon had been present on each occasion, and to Mrs. Sheldon alone had the physician given utterance to his opinion of the case. That opinion, though expressed with a certain amount of professional dignity, amounted to very little. "Our dear young friend wanted strength; and what we had to do was to give our dear young friend strength--vital power. Yes--er--um, that was the chief point. And what kind of diet might our dear young friend take now? Was it a light diet, a little roast mutton--not too much done, but not underdone? O dear, no. And a light pudding? what he would call--if he might be permitted to have his little joke--a nursery pudding." And then the old gentleman had indulged in a senile chuckle, and patted Charlotte's head with his fat old fingers. "And our dear young friend's room, now, was it a large room?--good! and what was the aspect now, south?--good again! nothing