How like an angel’s sigh of loving pity that summer’s wind breathed on the cheek of the sufferer! How kindly the crimson sunset clouds tried to shed their own glow on its pallor, and even to fill with light the tear that glittered on it. The blush roses, too, that swayed to and fro at the open window, vied with each other who should kiss the thin, white hand that rested on the sill; and her sad eyes beamed forth a grateful blessing on them all, as she lay there, like a child, in her father’s arms. His face bore a strange contrast to the mournful gentleness of hers; for his dark, heavy brows were knit, and his lips compressed, as though in anger; yet that firm lip quivered, as he said, tenderly-- “How much you have suffered, my poor child! No wonder that it has made you sick and delirious!” “I have suffered no more than I deserved,” murmured Clara. “But how did the man try to extenuate his villany?” exclaimed her father, with a sudden flash of indignation from his dark eyes. “Don’t speak harshly, dear father?” whispered she. “He confessed, at last, that he was married, but said he had long ceased to love; and then, he loved me--so madly!” A smile of pure scorn curled Doctor Gregory’s lip, and he clasped his child closer in his arms, as he exclaimed-- “Thank God, my daughter, you are safe in your father’s arms once more!” “Oh, I am thankful,” said Clara, earnestly, raising her tearful eyes to her father’s face, “and I do hope that I may be a better child to you than I have ever been. I have been proud and selfish, but I do think that I am humbled now. Ah! how much I owe you, my father, to atone for the grief I have caused you. It seems to me, now, so strange that I could be so undutiful! I lived long in those few days I was absent from you--and, then,” she added, hesitating, “there is another thing for which I ought to make a long and sad confession--I have been most unkind to her you gave me in my mother’s stead. I have felt it all as I have lain upon my bed, and watched her noiseless footsteps stealing about, ministering to me. I have suffered for it as I have felt her cool, soft hand upon my burning forehead--and, most of all, have I repented it, as I have noticed the beautiful delicacy with which she avoids the most remote allusion to my ingratitude and folly.” “God bless you, my child!” breathed Doctor Gregory, with deep emotion. “I trusted long to your good sense to correct the evil which I so much mourned. I pitied you--for I knew, but too well, whence you inherited the self-will that was your bane. But your heart is the victor, at last,” and a glow of satisfaction lighted his countenance, as he bowed his manly head to kiss the sweet face that rested on his breast. “But you will have great disappointment and loneliness to sustain, my dear Clara. I fear you will be very unhappy.” Clara gazed cheerfully and seriously into her father’s face as she replied--