Here Madam Stanwood paused. She had sketched rather than related so far, and the fair girls listened with a pained and eager interest. Most of what she had alluded to was new to them, and as they looked on one who had personally known and suffered in what had to them been only a dry “history,” she seemed transformed in their eyes. Oh! the “unwritten history” of that placid face! The written one of that heart, whose every fibre had been woven in one long web of anxiety and sorrow, and dyed in the blood of the loved and lost one! For now they saw that Edward must have been one of those who fell in that massacre. Their eager and tearful faces expressed the sympathy they did not else utter, and their aged relative understood it. She went on quietly. “All is not yet told, my daughters. I heard that Edward had fallen, and years passed away, and still I heard nothing from him more. Then I married Mr. Stanwood—and then—and then Edward returned.” “Returned!” exclaimed both the girls in a breath. “Yes, he returned. The massacre was not complete. Somebody became satisfied with blood, and proposed a respite, and about forty were left living, and taken prisoners to New York. Edward lived through a long, dreadful fever, alone, without aid or attendance of any sort. Then he was sent with a hundred others to a prison-ship. God forbid your dear hearts should be saddened with all he underwent there. We heard it all. He returned to his family at last, with broken health, broken fortune—” “And a broken heart! ah, grandmother!” “No, his heart was not broken. What he felt I never knew, for he learned my marriage before he came back, and we never met for years. My children, my story will have been told you quite in vain, if it does not show you that hearts must live and act, and fulfill present duties, with what fortitude they may, and _not_ break—nor ‘brokenly live on.’ God gave me the strength for which I prayed, to perform my duty to my husband and children, and to set aside from my heart an image which no longer fitted such a temple. I have long ago ceased to look at him with any eyes but those of friendly interest, though the recall of so much that is connected with grief is of course painful, and you see yourselves that he is both gay and social, and by no means inclined to play the despairing lover.” “We see!” they again spoke in a breath. “Yes, you have seen him this afternoon. Edward—_Colonel Edward Morgan_. And here we are at home, my loves, an hour past dinner-time.” * * * * * FAIR WIND. BY J. T. FIELDS. O who can tell, that never sailed Among the glassy seas, How fresh and welcome breaks the morn That ushers in a breeze! Fair wind! Fair wind! alow, aloft, All hands delight to cry— As leaping through the parted waves The good ship makes reply.