“You _know_ I do, Fred,” said the weeping girl; “but my lover and the Fred who drinks are two different persons, and I _can’t_ trust the latter. Don’t think me selfish: be always your natural self, and there’s no poverty or sorrow that I won’t endure to be always with you. Do you think I hope to marry you for the sake of living in luxury, or that any pleasures that money will buy will satisfy me any more than they do Nellie Wainright and Mr. Moshier’s wife? Or do you, professing to love me, ask me to run even the slightest risk of ever being as unhappy as the poor women we have been talking about are with their husbands, who love them dearly? You _must_ keep that promise, or I must love you apart from you--until you marry some one else! Even then I could only stop, it seems to me, by stopping to live.” Fred’s face, while Esther was speaking, was anything but comely to look upon, but his intended reply was prevented by a violent knock at the door. Esther hurriedly dried her eyes, and prepared to vanish, if necessary, while Fred regained in haste his ordinary countenance; then, as the servant opened the door, the lovers heard a voice saying, “Is Fred Macdonald here? He must come down to George Doughty’s right away. George is dying!” Fred gave Ettie a hasty kiss and a conciliatory caress, after which he left the house at a lively run. CHAPTER VII. SOME NATURAL RESULTS. George Doughty lay propped up in bed; standing beside him, and clasping his hand tightly, was his wife; near him were his two oldest children, seemingly as ignorant of what was transpiring as they were uncomfortable on account of the peculiar influence which pervaded the room. On the other side of the bed, and holding one of the dying man’s hands, knelt Parson Wedgewell; beside him stood the doctor; while behind them both, near the door, and as nearly invisible as a man of his size could be, was Squire Tomple. The Squire’s face and figure seemed embodiments of a trembling, abject apology; he occasionally looked toward the door, as if to question that inanimate object whether behind its broad front he, the Squire, might not be safe from his own fears. It was very evident that the Squire’s conscience was making a coward of him; but it was also evident, and not for the first time in the world’s history, that cowardice is mightily influential in holding a coward to the ground that he hates. Had any one spoken to him, or paid him the slightest attention, the Squire would have felt better; nothing turns cowards into soldiers so quickly as the receipt of a volley; but no such relief seemed at all likely to reach him. The doctor, like a true man, having done all things, could only stand, and stand he did; Parson Wedgewell, feeling that upon his own efforts with the Great Physician depended the sick man’s future well-being, prayed silently and earnestly, raising his head only to search, through his tears, the face of the patient for signs of the desired answer to prayer. Mrs.