He thought, and with sufficient reason, that perhaps he might never see her alive again; and, it must be confessed, as he leaned over her to say good morning, his eyes were moist as she passionately kissed him. “Don’t weep, Charley dear,” poor Clara would say, as she passed her thin, white, delicate arms around his neck in unaffected simplicity and affection. “There, don’t, don’t weep, my good, good, boy, or you will make me worse, darling; there, smile. Oh, how different you look, pet; what a shame it is that you look so solemn. There, go away smiling, and it will make me happy all the day,” she would laughingly add as he bestowed a parting embrace and departed. While Charley was full of business, one morning at the office—but, it must be confessed, in a very disturbed state of mind—a messenger arrived, saying, “He was wanted at home immediately, his wife was dying!” If a shot had struck him he could not have felt more pain and alarm. He seized his hat, and ran down to the ferry-boat like a maniac. He had to wait fifteen minutes before the boat started. It was unearthly torture to him. He could plainly see his house, on the south side of the river, which appeared to be no more than a few hundred yards distant. He sought for a row-boat, but none was at hand. He felt as if he could have jumped across the river, and paced up and down, like one demented. Just as the regular boat was about to leave the ferry wharf, old Sir Richard appeared, and in company with one of the best physicians of the city. He had been informed by the same messenger of the critical nature of the case, had left the India House on the instant, and had forced his old friend, Dr. Stevens, to accompany him. “Never mind your engagements, doctor—this is a case of life or death. I would not have her die for thousands!” Within a few moments the boat started, and the three gentlemen were soon landed on the other side. Two minutes’ walk sufficed to bring them to Charley’s residence. Charley rushed upstairs, and would have entered his wife’s apartment. Mistress Haylark, looking double her ordinary size, stood outside the door, blocking up the door, and denied him entrance. “Go in there, sir,” she said, pointing majestically to a back room with her right hand, holding a basin of gruel in the left. “Go in there, sir!” she repeated, with awful solemnity of voice and manner, “and stay until you’re called, and don’t dare come in the room!” Charley, the young and anxious husband, was stupefied, but mechanically obeyed. He had not remained long in suspense, when the connecting door between the back and front bed-rooms opened, and Dame Worthington, all smiles and tears, appeared with something in her arms, which, rolled up in flannels and shawls, appeared to be an armful of newly-made muffins. “Look at that, my dear! look at your own dear boy, and kiss him!”