all physical--of the flesh, not of the spirit; there had been nothing about her which could lead even her lover, in the days when he was her lover, to think of her otherwise than as a beautiful development of physical life, a creature all made of lovely flesh and blood, with fascinations which began and ended in satiny gloss and dazzling colour, in roundness and brightness, and softness and warmth. What could he think of her now? She had gone, and had left behind all the qualities by which he knew her. Her voice was silent, that one gift she possessed by which she could call forth any emotion that was not of the senses; with it she could rouse a man to fierce rage, to wild impatience, to hatred and murderous impulses; but that was silent, and her beauty was turned into marble, a solemn thing that chilled and froze the beholder. What else was there of her that her husband could think of, could follow with his thoughts? Her soul--what was it? Frederick had never cared to know. He had never perceived its presence in any secret moment. But he was not impious, nor a speculatist of any kind; he indulged in no questions which the most orthodox theologian could have thought dangerous. He tried even to think piously of his Amanda as passed into another, he hoped a better, world; but he stood bewildered and saddened on that threshold, not knowing how to shape these thoughts, nor what to make of the possibility of spiritual non-bodily existence for her. He could not follow her in idea to any judgment, to any heaven. He stood dully sad before the dim portals within which she had passed, with a heavy aching in his heart, a blank and wondering sense of something broken off. He was not without feeling; he could not have gone to bed and slept stupefied as did the father, who had lost the only thing he loved. A natural awe, a natural pang, were in Frederick’s mind; he felt the life run so warm in his own veins, and she was dead and ended. Poor Amanda! he was more sorry for her than he was for himself. The anguish of love is more selfish; it is its own personal loss, the misery of the void in which it has to live alone, which wrings its heart. But Frederick, for once, felt little for himself. To himself the change was not heart-breaking; he was free from much that had threatened to make his life a failure; but for once his mind departed from selfish considerations. He was sorry for her. Poor Amanda! who had lost all she cared for, all she knew.