The protection of the Almighty has been implored “through the silent watches of the night,” and Mr. Melville’s household is hushed in sleep--all but Christian; for this quiet hour when all are at rest, is Christian’s usual hour of thoughtful relaxation and enjoyment. But she had a clouded brow and an uneasy look when she entered her room to-night--that room of many memories. At length there is no mist of disquietude to be seen upon her peaceful face; no doubt in her loving heart: she has gone to the footstool of the Lord, and borne with her there that child of her tenderness and affection, over whose dawning fate she has trembled, and has committed her into the keeping of the Father of all; and she has poured forth, with weeping earnestness, the longings of her soul for that lost brother, whom even yet she knows not to be within the reach of prayer. Often has she thought that Halbert may be dead, since day after day these years have come and gone, and no tidings from, or of him, have gladdened her heart. Her spirit has been sick with deferred hope, as month after month went by and brought no message. But she is calmer to-night; the load is off her soul; she has entrusted the guardianship of the twain into His hands who doeth all things well, and with whom all things are possible; and wherefore should she fear! The light in her chamber is extinguished, and the moonbeams are streaming in through the window. A few hours since she watched their silvery radiance stealing, unheeded and unseen, into yon crowded room, drowned in the flood of artificial light which filled it, and then she had thought these rays an emblem of Heaven’s Viceroy--conscience--unknown and unnoticed, perchance, by those gay people round about her, but even then marking with silent finger upon its everlasting tablets, the hidden things of that unseen and inner life in long detail, moment, and hour, and day, for each one of them. But now, in the silence of her own room, these beams have another similitude to Christian, as they pour in unconfined, filling the quiet chamber. They tell her of peace, peace full, sweet, and unmeasured,--not the peace of a rejoicing and triumphant spirit,--the sunbeams are liker it,--but of one borne down with trial and sorrow, with a sore fight of affliction, with a fear and anguish in times past, yet now at rest. Oh, happy contradiction! distracted with cares and anxieties, yet calm amid them all, full of the memories of bygone sorrow, of forebodings of sorrows yet to come, but peaceful withal, how blessed the possession!