"Say, dearest, what has happened?"
The tears now fell from his eyes like rain, and sob after sob shook his frame convulsively.
Constance waited in silence until the agitation subsided, and then gently urged him to tell her what it was that troubled him so painfully.
"I am broken in spirits now, Constance. I am a weak child. I have received the last blow, and manhood has altogether forsaken me."
"Tell me! oh, tell me! Theodore, all, all! Do not distress me by further silence, or mystery!"
A pause of some minutes succeeded, during which Wilmer was making strong efforts to overcome his feelings.
"Constance," he at length said, mournfully, "I have tried long, and much beyond my strength, to earn the small sum that it took to support our little ones; but nature has at last given way. Here is the last dollar I shall probably ever earn, and now I shall be a burden upon you, eating the bread of my children, while they, poor things, will hunger for the morsel that nourishes me. I do not wonder that manly feelings have passed away with my strength. Constance, what shall we do?"
An angel of comfort is woman to life's last extremity.
Fragile as a reed, that bends to the passing breeze, when the sunshine of prosperity is bright above and around, she becomes the tall oak, deep-rooted and strong-branched, when the wintry storms of adversity sweep over the earth. No trial subdues her, no privation brings a murmur of discontent. She will hope to the last, and still have a smile of assurance for those who, in their despondency, have even cast away hope. Constance Wilmer was a woman, and as a woman, her worth was felt more and more, as troubles came thicker and faster.
"Dear husband!" she said, in a steady and cheerful voice, "you have forgotten that line, so true and so comforting—"'Despair is never quite despair'—