as fresh on the grass, the chirps of the insects as blithe in the trees, and the silvery beams of the moonlight shimmered as brightly through the overhanging leaves. It was the same scene—the same! Every instant the excitement was rising higher in my bosom, growing irrepressible—uncontrollable; until, as we emerged from the forest-path, and passed into our yard—as the iron gate swung to with a clang—as the perfume of violets met me—as the dark front of the house loomed up in the moonlight,—everything reproducing the scene of that fatal evening, insanity broke forth in phrensy, and I became a raving maniac! “I recovered my reason to learn the value of poor Fanny’s son. I awoke one day from a deep sleep—I awoke refreshed, with cooler blood, calmer nerves, and clearer brain, than I had known for weeks, and with a full consciousness of all that had passed up to the hour of my loss of self-control. Raymond was sitting by me. “‘Raymond, what has happened?’ inquired I. “‘You have been very ill, my father.’ “‘I have been MAD!—I know that right well, my boy—but tell me, how long did it last? what did I do? and who was with me?’ This last was the most important question—my heart stopped its pulsations until he answered: “‘Your attack spent its _fury in half an hour_, father—you hurt no one but yourself—and—no one witnessed your—your _illness_ but myself and the waiter who assisted me in getting you up to bed.’ “‘And what did you then do? what did you give me?’ “‘Nothing, father; nature did everything, and did it well—art nothing. Your fury spent itself as a storm spends itself—-by raging—and then it subsided, as a storm subsides, into perfect calmness; you fell into a deep sleep of exhaustion, which lasted all last night and all to-day, from which you have but just awaked; and you feel better _for_ the attack, do you not, father? It has expended the gathering vapors and gloom of many weeks, and you feel better?’ “‘Yes, yes, quite well, calm and clear-headed; but, Raymond, with this interregnum in my memory, and this great change in my feelings, it seems to me that a long, long time, has intervened since my attack; _how_ long has the time really been?’ “‘Not quite twenty-four hours.’ “‘Has any one called to-day?’ “‘No one.’ “‘Then none know of this except yourself?’ “‘No, sir, none know of this except myself and the waiter, who does not more than half comprehend it, and who, besides, is no gossip.’ “‘You understand that I _wish_ no one to know of it?’ “‘I understand that perfectly, my father; and it shall be my care to guard your secret.’ “It was some time after this that I found how much I had hurt Raymond by a furious blow on the chest dealt in my phrensy.