“‘What did she say?—­what did she do?’

“’She didn’t say much,—­“Oh, my God! my God!”—­something like that.  The next morning she showed me a letter which she had written to Margaret.’

“‘To Margaret?’ I started up, but fell back again, helpless, with a groan.

“‘Yes,’ said Joseph,—­’and it was a letter worthy of the noblest woman.  I wrote another, for I thought Margaret ought to know everything.  It might save her life, and yours, too.  In the mean time, I had got worse news from her still,—­that her health continued to decline, and that her physician saw no hope for her except in a voyage to Italy.  But that she resolutely refused to undertake, until she got those letters.  You know the rest.’

“‘The rest?’ I said, as a horrible suspicion flashed upon me.  ’You told me something terrible had happened.’

“’Yes,—­to Flora.  But you have heard the worst.  She is gone; she is by this time in Rome.’

“‘Flora gone?  But you said she was here.’

“’She? So she is!  But did you think I meant Flora?  I supposed you knew.  Not Flora,—­but Margaret!  Margaret!’

“I shrieked out, ‘Margaret?’ That’s the last I remember,—­at least, the last I can tell.  She was there,—­I was in her arms;—­she had crossed the sea, not to save her own life, but mine.  And Flora had gone, and my dreams were true; and the breath and magnetic touch of love, which infused warm, sweet life into me, and seemed not Flora’s, but Margaret’s, were no illusion, and——­what more can I tell?

“From the moment of receiving those letters, Margaret’s energies were roused, and she had begun to regain her health.  There is no such potent medicine as hope and love.  It had saved her, and it saved me.  My recovery was sure and speedy.  The happiness which had seemed too great, too dear to be ever possible, was now mine.  She was with me again, all my own!  Only the convalescent, who feels the glow of love quicken the pure pulses of returning health, knows what perfect bliss is.

“As soon as I was strong enough to travel, we set out for Italy, the faithful Joseph accompanying us.  We enjoyed Florence, its palaces and galleries of art, the quaint old churches, about which the religious sentiment of ages seems to hang like an atmosphere, the morning and evening clamor of musical bells, the Arno, and the olive-crowned Tuscan hills,—­all so delightful to the senses and the soul.  After Florence, Naples, with its beautiful, dangerous, volcanic environs, where the ancients aptly located their heaven and hell, and where a luxurious, passionate people absorbs into its blood the spirit of the soil, and the fire and languor of the clime.  From Naples to Rome, where we saw St Peter’s, that bubble on the surface of the globe, which the next earthquake may burst, the Vatican, with its marvels of statuary, the ruined temples of the old gods and heroes, the Campagna, the Pope, and—­Flora.  We