which stood open to give all the air possible, to see or hear how things were going. One time when he did so his face was working with emotion. “Rosalind,” he said, in the whisper which they spoke in, though had they spoken as loudly as their voices would permit no sound could have reached the sick-room; “Rosalind, I think that woman is sublime. She knows that the first thing he will do will be to harm and shame her, and yet there she is, doing everything for him. I don’t know if she is a sinner or not, but she is sublime--” “Who are you speaking of as that woman?--of MY MOTHER, Uncle John?” cried Rosalind, expanding and growing out of her soft girlhood into a sort of indignant guardian angel. He shook his head impatiently and sat down; and nothing more was said between them till the middle of the night, when Dr. Beaton coming in told them the worst was over, and for the moment the sick man would “pull through.” “But I’ll have that nurse in confinement. I’ll send her to the asylum. It is just manslaughter,” he said. Russell, very pale and frightened, was at her door when Rosalind went up-stairs. “The doctor says he will have you tried for manslaughter,” Rosalind said, as she passed her. “No, I will not say good-night. You have all but killed papa.” “It is not I that have killed him,” said Russell; “it’s those that do what they didn’t ought to.” Rosalind, in her excitement, stamped her foot upon the floor. “He says you shall be sent to the asylum; and I say you shall be sent away from here. You are a bad woman. Perhaps now you will kill the children to complete your work. We are none of us safe so long as you are here.” At this Russell gave a bitter cry and threw up her hands to heaven. “The children,” she cried, “that I love like my own--that I give my heart’s blood for--not safe! Oh, Miss Rosalind! God forgive you!--you, that I have loved the best of all!” “How should I forgive you?” cried Rosalind, relentless. “I will never forgive you. Hate me if you please, but never dare to say you love me. Love!--you don’t know what it is. You should go away to-night if it were I who had the power and not mamma.” “She has the power yet. She will not have it long,” the woman cried, in her terror and passion. And she shut herself up in her room, which communicated with the children’s, and flung herself on the floor in a panic which was perhaps as tragical as any of the other sensations of this confused and miserable house.