One day he called her to him as she returned from her visit of charity to the surrounding peasantry. She had wept over their troubles and relieved them, and rejoiced with the happy. Her heart was over-flowing, and passing the little church, she entered, and offered up a prayer of thankfulness for her own blessings, and those she was able to confer on others. Her husband watched her graceful form as she came at his call, and smilingly placed a letter in her hand. It was from her mother, and part of it ran thus: "I am now very old, monsieur, and very infirm. I have often thought, in my lonely hours, of the unhappiness of my child on her marriage with you, and have doubted the wisdom of that authority which I exercised so severely over her. The vision of that pale, agonized countenance, comes upon me like a reproach; and although she has never hinted in one of her letters of unkindness from you, I have often thought that there was a mournful spirit pervading them. Pray God she may not be unhappy through my fault! I rely upon you, monsieur; be kind to my poor Pauline. MARIE THERESE CLEMENCE DUMESNIL. (_Nee de Villeneuve_.)" Pauline's tears fell fast over this letter; and as she finished reading it, she cast herself upon her husband's bosom. "She does not deserve a reply, does she, Pauline?" asked he, with a smile, and pressing her closer to him. "Think you there would be no more marriages _de convenance_ if we were to give the benefit of our experience to the world? Would your mother even be sensible of her error, could she know how your suffering has ended--could she see how happy you make an old man." "Let her think that we have been always so," cried the noble Pauline. "Why disturb her last years with a narrative of what may embitter them? Shall it not be so, my dear, kind husband?" "It shall, my child," said he, touched by the generosity of her request. "And you, Pauline, shall write the answer--you, my patient, enduring, and admirable wife! Why is it that I alone know what you have suffered, forced thus to appreciate in silence your noble forbearance." But there was another letter to be read--one from Angela. It contained an account of Madame Dumesnil's failing strength, and her earnest desire to embrace her child once more. Jeannette was long since numbered with the dead; and Angela, whose devotion to her father had made her refuse every offer of marriage, removed with him to the abode of her friend's mother, passing her life in dividing her cares. But a short time elapsed and Pauline, with her husband, was sailing once more upon the broad bosom of the Atlantic. It was a long and tedious voyage; but she arrived in time to receive her mother's blessing, and close her eyes--the reward her filial piety had merited.