“‘Yes, dear—dear—dearest husband! God knows how I do from my heart! I forgive all the little you have ever grieved me about.’
“‘Oh, Jane—Jane—Jane!’ groaned the man, suddenly stooping over the bed and kissing her lips in an apparent ecstasy. He fell down on his knees and cried bitterly.
“‘Rise, George, rise,’ said his wife, faintly. He obeyed her, and she again clasped his hand in hers.
“‘George, are you there—are you?’ she inquired, in a voice fainter and fainter.
“‘Here I am, love!—oh, look on me! look on me!’ he sobbed, gazing steadily on her features. ‘Say once more that you forgive me! Let me hear your dear, blessed voice again—or—or—’
“‘I do! kiss me—kiss me,’ she murmured, almost inaudibly; and her unworthy, her guilty husband kissed away the last expiring breath of one of the loveliest and most injured women whose hearts have been broken by a husband’s brutality.”
In that singular instance of premonstration, “The Broken Heart,” we follow with eager interest to its natural and most sorrowful conclusion the sorrowful revelation so unexpectedly made to a gentle and pensive girl, in the midst of her song at a brilliant party, of the death of her affianced on the battle-field. There was nothing left for her then but to welcome the peace of the grave,—
“Like a lily drooping,