“Oh, Magnus! dear Magnus! wipe off the glass. Our breath, as we looked too close, has dulled it. I cannot see her angel face any longer for the mist upon the glass.” Magnus drew out his silk pocket-handkerchief and wiped the glass carefully. “I cannot see her yet, Magnus. I cannot see her yet. Oh, I want to see her again, that that divine countenance may be indelibly fixed in my memory—oh-h-h!” Magnus wiped the glass again very carefully, looked, wiped it a third time most carefully, and, taking up the lantern, threw its whole light upon the plate, rubbing it assiduously as he did so. Why did Dr. Hardcastle start— “As if the Archangel’s trump he heard?” The new mist upon the glass was from within the coffin. To snatch a hunting-knife from his belt, to wrench open the coffin lid with one wrench of his strong hand and throw it off, to give her fresh air; to snatch her from the coffin to the warmth and shelter of his living arms and bosom; to turn to the thunder-stricken Elsie, and exclaim: “Elsie, don’t faint! Be strong, I command you! Your mother lives! she lives! She has been placed here in apparent death only; she must not recover to find herself in this dreadful place; to see these grave-clothes; to know what horrors have befallen her, lest reason be shocked forever from its seat. Give me your cloak, Elsie! Quick! quick! My God, don’t faint, I abjure you; I’ll never forgive you if you faint now. Your cloak, I say; your cloak, quick! to throw around this shroud, which she must not see.” Elsie, with pallid lips and dilated eyes, too amazed and doubtful of her own senses and sanity to receive the joyful truth, with mechanical promptitude threw off her cloak and handed it to Magnus. “That’s my brave girl; that’s my pioneer wife!” he said, receiving the cloak, and folding it hastily yet carefully around the form he held in his arms, and pressing it closer to his bosom. “There, Elsie! Now, my little heroine, shade the lantern; quick, Elsie, lest she open her eyes and see the place we bear her from. Quick, Elsie! she is moving restlessly in my arms now, and her form is getting warm, thank Heaven! as warm almost as yours, my Elsie. There, now follow me closer behind, Elsie, my little soldier, and you may let the lantern shine as soon as we get out of the church.” And so, folding the form of Alice closer in his sustaining arms, closer to his sheltering bosom, and followed by Elsie, bearing the darkened lantern, he hurried up the stairs of the vault, down the aisle of the church, out of the great door, and across the graveyard toward the cottage of the sexton, never pausing in his speed until he reached the door of the cabin, which, without stopping to unlatch, he pushed open with a blow of his foot. He bore her in, followed by Elsie with the lantern. The fire they had left there was still burning brightly, warming and lighting the whole room. In the upper end of the apartment stood a poor but neat and cleanly bed.