"To one in your particular situation, a right knowledge of the truth you have just uttered is all-important. No matter what may be your condition, never suffer feeling to become so acute as to dim your sober thoughts, and paralyze your right actions. But here are a hundred dollars. Redeem your things, and get on your feet again. Take them as an advance on your salary for the last year; and draw six hundred instead of five, in future." A grateful look told the joy of his heart, as he hastened away. In one hour the furniture which the day before had been forcibly taken away, was at his own door. Relief from present embarrassment, and a fair prospect of a full support for the future, gave Wilmer a lighter heart than he had carried in his bosom for many months. The reaction made him for a time happy. But, while our hearts are evil, we cannot be happy, except for brief periods. The disease will indicate by pain its deep-rooted presence. The drooping form of his wife soon called his thoughts back to misery. Health had wandered away, and the smiling truant strayed so long, that hope of her return had almost forsaken them. Nearly five years had passed since Constance turned away, almost broken-hearted, from the door-stone of her father's house; and during all that long, long time, she had received no token of remembrance. She dared not suffer herself to think even for a moment on the cruel fact. The sudden, involuntary remembrance of such a change from the fondest affection to the most studied disregard, would almost madden her. As for Wilmer, the recollection of the past was as a thorn in his pillow, too often driving sleep from a wearied frame, that needed its health-restoring influence. And often, deep and bitter were his self-reproaches. But for his fatal and half-insane abandonment of himself to the vain hope of gaining a foothold by which he might rapidly elevate his condition for the sake of Constance, he was now conscious that, slowly, but surely, he would have risen, by the power of an internal energy of character. And more deeply conscious was he, that, but for the half-intoxicated condition in which he was when he consented to go to a gaming-house, he never would have abandoned himself to gaming and drinking as he did for two long years of excited hopes, and dark, gloomy despondency. Two years, that broke down his spirits, and exhausted the energies of his physical system. Two years, from whose sad effects, neither mind nor body was ever again able to recover. But now let us turn from the cast-off, from the forsaken, to the parents who had estranged themselves from their child.