We leave the reader to imagine the last parting moments between that mother and her child. She who had framed the separation as an act of duty, was not one to shrink at the last moment, or betray any faintness of spirit. With a nobly heroic heart she yielded up the young and helpless treasure of her affections to the guardianship of others, and turned to expend her capacities of watchfulness and care upon another object. How well she performed this labor of love, notwithstanding the trial she had just experienced—how far she succeeded in dismissing the recollection of it from her mind sufficiently to enable her to sustain the weight of the responsibilities still devolving upon her—we shall now have an opportunity to determine. Within another half hour Alice entered the cell of a prison. It was one of those constructed for malefactors of the deepest cast, being partially under the ground, and partaking of the nature of a dungeon. The mighty stones of the walls were green and damp, and together with the cold, clay floor, were sufficient of themselves to suggest speedy illness, and perhaps death, to the occupant. Its only furniture consisted of a single wooden stool, a pallet of straw, and a rude table. On the pallet alluded to lay a man in the prime of life, his eyes closed in sleep, and the wan hue of death upon his countenance. One pallid hand, delicate and small as a woman’s, rested upon the coarse coverlet, while the other was placed beneath his head, from which streamed forth a profusion of waving hair, now matted and dull, instead of glossy and bright, as it had been in recent days. When Alice first entered, the sleeper was breathing somewhat disturbedly, but as she approached and bent over him, and raising the hand which lay upon the quilt, pressed it to her lips, his rest suddenly seemed to grow calm, and a faint smile settled upon his mouth. “Thank God!” whispered she to herself, as she replaced the hand as quietly as she had raised it, “my prayer is heard—the fever has left him, and he is fast recovering.” Seating herself on the wooden stool by his side, she remained watching him with looks of the most devoted interest and affection. In about half an hour he heaved a deep sigh, and opening his eyes, looked around to the spot where she was sitting. “You are a guardian angel, dear Alice,” said he; “even in my dreams I am conscious of your presence.” “Saving the little time that I must steal from you to bestow upon my poor father, I shall now be ever present with you,” answered Alice. “I have placed our little one in safe-keeping, and henceforth, while you remain here, I shall have no other care but yourself.” “Methinks I have already been too much your sole care, even to the neglect of your own health. Yet, except that sad look of sympathy, you seem not the worse for the tending me, else I might, indeed, reproach myself for this illness.”