cried Ascher, "you don't know my constitution. Besides, did n't you say that to-day was a fast, when it is forbidden to eat anything? And have I asked you for any food? But as for drink, that's quite another thing! The birds of the air can't do without it, much less man!"

Ephraim saw that for that evening, at all events, it would not do to oppose his father. He walked into the kitchen where Viola was preparing supper, or rather breakfast, for after the fast this was the first meal of the day.

"Viola," he said, "make haste and fetch some fresh wine."

"For him?" cried Viola, pointing her finger almost threateningly in the direction of the sitting-room door.

"Don't, don't, Viola!" Ephraim implored.

"And you are fasting!" she said.

"Am I not also fasting for him?" said Ephraim.

With a full bottle in his hand Ephraim once more entered the room. He placed the wine upon the table, where the glasses from which Ascher had drunk in the morning were still standing.

"Where is Viola?" asked Ascher, who was again pacing the room with firm steps.

"She is busy cooking."

"Tell her she shall have a husband, and a dowry that will make half the girls in Bohemia turn green and yellow with envy."

Then he approached the table, and drank three brimming glasses, one after the other. "Now then," he said, as with his whole weight he dropped into the old arm-chair.... "Now I 'll have a good night's rest. I need strength and sharp eyes, and they are things which only sleep can give. Ephraim, my son," he continued after a while in thick, halting accents... "tell the watch—Simon is his name, I think—he can give six knocks instead of three upon the door, in the morning, he won't disturb me... and to Viola you can say I 'll find her a husband, handsomer than her eyes have ever beheld, and tell her on her wedding-day she shall wear pearls round her neck like those of a queen—no, no, like those of Gudule, her mother." A few moments later he was sound asleep.

It was the dead of night. All round reigned stillness and peace, the peace of night! What a gentle sound those words convey, a sound akin only to the word home! Fraught, like it, with sweetest balm, a fragrant flower from long-lost paradise. Thou art at rest, Ascher, and in safe shelter; the breathing of thy children is so restful, so tranquil....

Desist! desist! 'T is too late. Side by side with the peace of night, there dwell Spirits of Evil, the never-resting, vagrant, home-destroying guests, who enter unbidden into the human soul! Hark, the rustling of their raven-hued plumage! They take wing, they fly aloft; 't is the shriek of the vulture, swooping down upon the guileless dove.

Is there no eye to watch thee? Doth not thine own kin see thy foul deeds?

Desist!

'T is too late....

Open is the window, no grating noise has accompanied the unbolting of the shutter.... The evil spirits have taken care that the faintest sound shall die away... even the rough iron obeys their voices... it is they who have bidden: "Be silent; betray him not; he is one of us."

Even the key in the door of the old bureau is turned lightly and without noise. Groping fingers are searching for a bulky volume. Have they found it? Is there none there to cry in a voice of thunder: "Cursed be the father who stretches forth his desecrating hand towards the things that are his children's"?...

They have found it, the greedy fingers! and now, but a spring through the open window, and out into the night....

At that moment a sudden ray of light shines through a crack in the door of the room.... Swiftly the door opens, a girlish figure appears on the threshold, a lighted lamp in her hand. . . .

"Gudule!" he shrieks, horror-stricken, and falls senseless at her feet.

Ascher was saved. The terrible blow which had struck him down had not crushed the life from him. He was awakened. But when, after four weeks of gruesome fever and delirium, his mind had somewhat regained its equilibrium, his hair had turned white as snow, and his children beheld an old, decrepit man.

That which Viola had denied her father when he returned to them in all the vigor of his manhood, she now lavished upon him in his suffering and helplessness, with that concentrated power of love, the source of which is not human, but Divine. In the space of one night of terror, the merest bud of yesterday had suddenly blossomed forth into a flower of rarest beauty. Never did gentler hands cool a fever-heated brow, never did sweeter voice mingle its melody with the gruesome dreams of delirium.

On his sick-bed, lovingly tended by Ephraim and Viola, an ennobling influence gradually came over the heart of the old gambler, and so deeply touched it, that calm peace crowned his closing days. It was strange that the events of that memorable night, and the vicissitudes that had preceded it, had left no recollection behind, and his children took good care not to re-awaken, by the slightest hint, his sleeping memory.

A carriage drew up one day in front of Ascher's house. There has evidently been a splendid crop of oats this year. Uncle Gabriel has come. Uncle Gabriel has only lately assumed the additional character of father-in-law to Ephraim, for he declared that none but Eph-raim should be his pet daughter's husband. And now he has come for the purpose of having a confidential chat with Viola. There he sits, the kind-hearted, simple-minded man, every line of his honest face eloquent with good-humor and happiness, still guilty of an occasional violent onslaught upon his thighs. Viola still remains his "little spit-fire."

"Now, Viola, my little spit-fire," said he, "won't you yet allow me to talk to my Nathan about you? Upon my word, the boy can't bear the suspense any longer."

"Uncle," says Viola, and a crimson blush dyes her pale cheeks: "Uncle," she repeats, in a tone of such deep earnestness, that the laughing expression upon Gabriel's face instantly vanishes, "please don't talk to him at all. My place is with my father!"

And to all appearances Viola will keep her word.

Had she taken upon herself a voluntary penance for having, in her heart's bitter despair, presumed to abjure her faith in the Sechûs of her mother? Or was there yet another reason? The heart of woman is a strangely sensitive thing. It loves not to build its happiness upon the hidden ruins of another's life.