"I said all that I was authorized to say. When I urged the step as necessary, you replied that it was impossible." "It is too true!" exclaimed he, striking his forehead; "and yet she is dearer to me than my own life;"--and, unable to suppress his feelings, he burst into an agony of tears. Suddenly starting up, he said, "Doctor, I have the highest respect for your skill; but you are fallible, like all men. It is my opinion, that a sea voyage and change of climate will restore my wife. If you will go with us, so much the better; if not, I will seek some other physician to accompany her." "It is but right to inform you," said Dr. B., "that there is no chance of restoration. I suggested to her, that there might be alleviation in a warm climate; but she positively declines seeking it, and says her only wish is to die quietly, at home. She fully estimates the strength of your affection, and entreats of you to spare her all superfluous agitation. 'Tell him,' said she, 'there is but one thing that can unsettle the calmness of my mind; it is to see him wanting in Christian resignation.'" It would be painful to dwell on the anguish that followed this communication. Mr. Draper realized, for the first time, the tenderness and watchfulness that a character and constitution like his wife's required. In the common acceptation of the word, he was an excellent husband; yet, in his eager pursuit of wealth, he had left her to struggle alone with many of the harassing cares of life. He had, by thinking himself unable to accompany her, denied her the necessary recreation of travelling; he had deprived her of her favorite residence in the city, and when she turned her affections to Clyde, even there they found no resting-place. He recollected their unpropitious journey--the exposure to cold and rain--that he had hurried on the invalids, till he had accomplished his own purposes. One had already gone; the other was fast following. Speculators have consciences and affections, and his were roused to agony. Frances shrunk not from the hour of death, which rapidly approached. Howard and Charlotte were constantly with her. There was nothing gloomy in her views. She considered this life as a passage to another; and saw through the vista immortality and happiness. To Charlotte, she bequeathed her daughter, and this faithful friend promised to watch over her with a mother's care. Many and long were her conversations with her husband--not on the subject of her death, or arrangements after it should take place; but she was earnest that her serenity, her high hopes, might be transferred to his mind. She had often, in the overflowings of her heart, endeavored to communicate to him her animated convictions of a future life. Those who live constantly in the present think but little of the future. Mr. Draper usually cut short the conversation, with the apparently devout sentiment,--"I am quite satisfied on this subject; 'Whatever is, is right.'"