Life and death had passed each other on the threshold! Lucy Ford’s tears were the baptism of Mary’s motherless babe. The poor weary heart, whose pulse had beat so unevenly above it, had ceased its flutterings. It was nothing new to see Mary lie with marble face, folded hands, and softly-fringed, closed eyes. But, _sometimes_, the thin hand had been kindly outstretched toward Lucy; _sometimes_, the glossy head had raised itself, and leaned tenderly on the maternal bosom; _sometimes_, the blue eye had lingered lovingly on her wrinkled face. Small comfort, God knows--and yet it was much to poor Lucy. She looked at the little gasping, helpless thing before her--a tenant already for her rifled heart--a new claimant for her love and care. Oh, how could she else but welcome it? With soft folds she wrapped its fragile limbs, with motherly care she soothed it on her sunken breast, and with a prayer to God, as she pressed her lips to Mary’s brow, she promised Death to be faithful to the trust of Life. * * * * * Days and nights--weeks, months and years came and went, blanching the prisoner’s lip and cheek, but failing to subdue a love which yet had not saved him from incurring a doom so terrible. Had Mary forgotten him? for, since that dreadful, happy day, when he clasped her in his cell, he had heard nothing save the damning sneer of the villain Scraggs. Perhaps she was dead--and his bloodless lip quivered at the thought. Nay--worse--perhaps they might have married her, in her despair, to another. Percy tossed on his narrow cot in agony. He even welcomed the day-light, which recalled him to his task. Oh, those long, long nights, when locked in his cell, remorse kept him silent company! or worse, the dreary, idle Sunday, when taken out once to chapel, then remanded back to his dark cell, he lay thinking of the pleasant Sabbaths he had passed with Mary, in the little parlor, on the sofa by her side. He could see her now, in the pretty blue dress she wore to please him; the ring he had given her, sparkling on her white hand--her glossy hair, worn the very way _he_ liked to see it, the book opened at the passage _he_ liked best, the little flower pressed between its leaves, because _he_ gave it. Then the little arbor in the garden--where they used to sit the pleasant Sabbath evenings--the song Mary sang him there--with her head upon his breast. Oh, happiness--oh, misery! Percy knew it was summer, for as he passed through the prison-yard he saw that the green blades of grass were struggling up between the flag-stones, and now and then, he heard the chirp of a passing bird. The sky, too, was softly blue, and the breeze had been where clover and daisies had bloomed, and rifled their sweetness.