"Poor thing!" he cried, in a tone of the utmost tenderness and compassion, "Poor thing!" and then gazed on her with such inquiring and mournful looks, that tears once more found their way and relieved her bursting brain, while seizing her father's hand she pressed it with frantic emotion to her lips.

Fitzhenry looked at her with great kindness, and suffered her to hold his hand;—then exclaimed, "Poor thing!—don't cry,—don't cry;—I can't cry,—I have not cried for many years,—not since my child died.—For she is dead, is she not?" looking earnestly at Agnes, who could only answer by her tears.—"Come," said he, "come," taking hold of her arm, then laughing wildly, "Poor thing! you will not leave me, will you?"—"Leave you!" she replied: "Never:—I will live with you—die with you."—"True, true," cried he, "she is dead, and we will go visit her grave."—So saying, he dragged Agnes forward with great velocity; but as it was along the path leading to the town, she made no resistance.

Indeed it was such a pleasure to her to see that though he knew her not, the sight of her was welcome to her unhappy parent, that she sought to avoid thinking of the future, and to be alive only to the present: she tried also to forget that it was to his not knowing her that she owed the looks of tenderness and pity which he bestowed on her, and that the hand which now kindly held hers, would, if recollection returned, throw her from him with just indignation.

But she was soon awakened to redoubled anguish, by hearing Fitzhenry, as he looked behind him, exclaim, "They are coming! they are coming!" and as he said this, he ran with frantic haste across the common. Agnes, immediately looking behind her, saw three men pursuing her father at full speed, and concluded that they were the keepers of the bedlam whence he had escaped. Soon after, she saw the poor lunatic coming towards her, and had scarcely time to lay her child gently on the ground, before Fitzhenry threw himself in her arms, and implored her to save him from his pursuers.

In an agony that mocks description, Agnes clasped him to her heart, and awaited in trembling agitation the approach of the keepers.—"Hear me! hear me!" she cried; "I conjure you to leave him to my care: He is my father, and you may safely trust him with me."—"Your father!" replied one of the men; "and what then, child? You could do nothing for him, and you should be thankful to us, young woman, for taking him off your hands.—So come along, master, come along," he continued, seizing Fitzhenry, who could with difficulty be separated from Agnes,—while another of the keepers, laughing as he beheld her wild anguish, said, "We shall have the daughter as well as the father soon, I see, for I do not believe there is a pin to choose between them."

But severe as the sufferings of Agnes were already, a still greater pang awaited her. The keepers finding it a very difficult task to confine Fitzhenry, threw him down, and tried by blows to terrify him into acquiescence. At this outrage Agnes became frantic indeed, and followed them with shrieks, entreaties, and reproaches; while the struggling victim called on her to protect him, as they bore him by violence along, till, exhausted with anguish and fatigue, she fell insensible on the ground, and lost in a deep swoon the consciousness of her misery.

When she recovered her senses all was still around her, and she missed her child. Then hastily rising, and looking round with renewed phrensy, she saw it lying at some distance from her, and on taking it up she found that it was in a deep sleep. The horrid apprehension immediately rushed on her mind, that such a sleep in the midst of cold so severe was the sure forerunner of death.

"Monster!" she exclaimed, "destroyer of thy child, as well as father!—But perhaps it is not yet too late, and my curse is not completed."—So saying, she ran, or rather flew, along the road; and seeing a house at a distance she made towards it, and, bursting open the door, beheld a cottager and his family at breakfast:—then, sinking on her knees, and holding out to the woman of the house her sleeping boy, "For the love of God," she cried, "look here! look here! Save him! O save him!"

A mother appealing to the heart of a mother is rarely unsuccessful in her appeal.—The cottager's wife was as eager to begin the recovery of the child of Agnes as Agnes herself, and in a moment the whole family was employed in its service; nor was it long before they were rewarded for their humanity by its complete restoration.

The joy of Agnes was frantic as her grief had been.—She embraced them all by turns, in a loud voice invoked blessings on their heads, and promised, if she was ever rich, to make their fortune:—lastly, she caught the still languid boy to her heart, and almost drowned it in her tears.

In the cottager and his family a scene like this excited wonder as well as emotion. He and his wife were good parents; they loved their children,—would have been anxious during their illness, and would have sorrowed for their loss: but to these violent expressions and actions, the result of cultivated sensibility, they were wholly unaccustomed, and could scarcely help imputing them to insanity,—an idea which the pale cheek and wild look of Agnes strongly confirmed; nor did it lose strength when Agnes, who in terror at her child's danger and joy for his safety had forgotten even her father and his situation, suddenly recollecting herself, exclaimed, "Have I dared to rejoice?—Wretch that I am! Oh! no;—there is no joy for me!" The cottager and his wife, on hearing these words, looked significantly at each other.

Agnes soon after started up, and, clasping her hands, cried out, "O my father! my dear, dear father! thou art past cure; and despair must be my portion."

"Oh! you are unhappy because your father is ill," observed the cottager's wife; "but do not be so sorrowful on that account, he may get better perhaps."

"Never, never," replied Agnes;—"yet who knows?"

"Aye; who knows indeed?" resumed the good woman. "But if not, you nurse him yourself, I suppose; and it will be a comfort to you to know he has every thing done for him that can be done."

Agnes sighed deeply.

"I lost my own father," continued she, "last winter, and a hard trial it was, to be sure; but then it consoled me to think I made his end comfortable. Besides, my conscience told me that, except here and there, I had always done my duty by him, to the best of my knowledge."