Five years from that sorrowful morning Clara sat by a window in her father's house, near the close of day, looking dreamily up into the serene and cloudless sky. Her face was pale, and had a look of hopeless suffering. Five years!--It seemed as if twenty must have passed over her head, each burdening her with a heavy weight of affliction. O, what a wreck did she present! Five years of such a life! Who can tell their history? She was alone; and sat with her head upon her hand, and her eyes fixed, as if upon some object. But, evidently, no image touched the nerve of vision. Presently her lips moved, and a few mournful words were uttered aloud, almost involuntarily. "O, that I knew where he was! O, that I could but find him, if alive!" A slight noise startled her, and she turned quickly. Was it a vision? Or did her long-lost husband stand before her, the shadow of what he had been? "Clara! Dear Clara!" In a moment she was clinging to him with a trembling, eager, convulsive grasp. Tenderly did he fold her in his arms, and press his lips to hers fervently. "Clara! Dear Clara!" "My own dear husband!" was all she could utter, as she sank like a helpless child on his bosom. For four years from the night of his wedding, Haley had been a common drunkard, with no power over himself. On the brink of the grave, he was rescued, signed a pledge of total abstinence, and set himself eagerly to work to elevate his condition. One year had sufficed to efface many sad tokens of his degradation, but time could not restore the freshness to his cheek, nor the light to his eye. Then he returned and sought his bride, who still mourned him with an inconsolable grief. A few months produced a happy change in both. But they cannot look back. Over the past they throw a veil,--the future is theirs, and it is growing brighter and brighter. May its clear sky never be darkened! THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. "Is there a good fire in the little spare room Jane?" said Mr. Wade, a plain country farmer, coming into the kitchen where his good wife was busy preparing for supper. "Oh, yes, I've made the room as comfortable as can be," replied Mrs. Wade; "but I wish you would take up a good armful of wood now, so that we wont have to disturb Mr. N--, by going into the room after he gets here." "If he should come this evening," remarked the husband. "But it is getting late, and I am afraid he won't be here Before the morning." "Oh, I guess he will be along soon. I have felt all day as if he were coming." "They say he is a good man, and preaches most powerfully. Mr. Jones heard him preach in New York at the last conference, and tells me he never heard such a sermon as he gave them. It cut right and left, and his words went home to every heart like arrows of conviction." "I hope he will be here this evening," remarked the wife as she put some cakes in the oven.