parted at the gate.

Time would pass almost unregistered by us, but for the abruptness of some of its movements.  Every country has its great national datas, which fix a period.  Of late, in France, “the revolution,” and “three glorious days;” in Ireland, “the ninety-eight;” in Scotland “the forty-five;” in England, “the restoration,” “the riots.”  These stormy doings are History’s high places.  Yet events which effect changes as entire and as wonderful, continue untalked about or unthought of, because they have not been heralded by beat of drum, and written in fields of slaughter.  So, in private life, time would pass for ever unregistered by us, but for the abruptness of some of its movements—things that seem either to stop its course or send it dashing forward.  The most humble have their “great events”—their mental land marks.  “It was just before I was married,” or “immediately after our eldest boy was born,” is the frequent observation of the wife and mother.  The widow says, “before my husband died.”  Poor Lucy, when the sufferings of pain were increased by the anxieties of duty, and retrospection was forced upon her, could only say, or think, “when my dear father was alive,”—that was her land mark!  The duties incident to her new position; the exertion which children require, and which is perpetual, though parents are the only persons who do not feel it to be so; the exercise, the necessity for amusing and instructing the young, the high-spirited, and the active; these added to the change of repose for inquietude, of being the one cared for, to the having to care for others; the entire loneliness of spirit, all combined to make her worse, to crush utterly the already bruised reed.

Lucy was fully sensible of the consoling power—the great PLEASURE of being useful; and her mind was both practically and theoretically Christian; so, she never yielded to fretfulness or impatience; she knew that, through all her trials—through her waking hours of pain, through the weary time of total incapacity for the fulfilment of her duties—God was with her, was her stay, was her support; was trying her, as pure gold is tried in the fire; would sustain her in spirit unto the end: she knew all this, she never doubted, but she suffered; her heart fluttered like an imprisoned bird, as she toiled and panted up the high stairs, while the children laughed and sported, with the spirit and energy of health, and called to her to ‘come faster.’  Night brought rest without refreshment; she could not sleep; and, stifling her cough, lest she should disturb others, she would look up to the starry sky, often repeating—

“Oh! that I had wings like a dove;”

but hardly had she so prayed, when a sense of her own unworthiness, of the duty of watching and waiting for God’s appointed time, would come upon her, and she would add, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”  No one was cruel, no one even unkind to her; the cross cook (all good cooks are cross), would often make her lemonade, or reserve something she thought the young girl might eat; the lady’s-maid, who had regarded her, at first, as a rival beauty, won by her cheerful patience, said, that even when her eyes were full of tears, there was a smile upon her lip; all the servants felt for her; and, at length, her mistress requested her own physician to see what was the matter with “poor Joyce.”

There are exceptions, no doubt; but, taken as a body, medical men—God bless them for so being!—are the very souls of kindness and generous humanity; how many have I known whose voices were as music in a sick chamber; who, instead of taking, gave; ever ready to alleviate and to sustain.

“Have you no friends?” he inquired.

“None, sir,” she replied; “at least none to support me; and,” she added, “I know I am unable to remain here.”  While she said this, she looked with her blue, truthful, earnest eyes, into his face; then paused, hoping, without knowing what manner of hope was in her, that he would say—“she was able;” but he did not; and she continued, “there is no one to whom I can go, except an old servant of my poor father’s; so, if—” there came, perhaps, a flush of pride to her cheek, or it might be she was ashamed to ask a favour—“if, sir, you could get me into AN HOSPITAL, I should be most grateful.”

“I wish I could,” he answered, “with all my heart.  We have hospitals enough; yet, I fear—indeed, I know—there is not one that would receive you, when aware of the exact nature of your complaint.  You must have a warm, mild atmosphere; perfect quiet, and a particular diet; and that for some considerable time.”

“My mother, sir,” said Lucy, “died of consumption.”

“Well, but you are not going to die,” he replied, smiling; “only you must let your father’s old servant take care of you, and you may soon get better.”

Lucy shook her head, and her eyes overflowed with tears; the physician cheered her, after the usual fashion.  “I am not afraid of death, sir,” said the young woman; “indeed, I am not; but I fear, more than I ought, the passage which leads to it; the burden I must be to the poor faithful creature who nursed me from my birth.  I thought there was an hospital for the cure of every disease; and this consumption is so general, so helpless, so tedious.”

“The very thing,”—said the doctor, who, with all his kindness, was one of those who think “so and so,” because “all the faculty” thought “so and so,” for such a number of years;—“its being tedious is the very thing; it is quite a FORLORN HOPE.”

“But, sir,” answered the soldier’s daughter, “Forlorn hopes have sometimes led to GREAT VICTORIES, when they have been FORLORN, but not FORSAKEN.”

The doctor pressed into her hand the latest fee he had received, and descended the stairs.  “That is a very extraordinary girl, madam, in the nursery,” he said to the lady, “something very superior about her; but she will get worse and worse; nothing for her but a more genial climate, constant care, perfect rest, careful diet: if she lives through the winter she must go in the spring.  Lungs! chest! blisters will relieve her; and if we could produce the climate of Madeira here for a winter or so, she might revive; but, poor thing, in her situation—”

The lady shook her head, and repeated, “Ay; in her situation.”

“It is really frightful,” he continued, “the hundreds—thousands, I may say—who drop off in this dreadful disease; the flower of our maidens; the finest of our youths; no age, no sex, exempt from it.  We have only casual practice to instruct us in it; we have no opportunity of watching and analyzing it, en masse, as we have with other complaints; it is turned out of our hospitals before we do what we even fancy might be done; it is indeed, as she said just now, ‘forlorn’ and ‘forsaken.’  Why, I know not; I really wish some one would establish an hospital for the cure, or, at least, the investigation of this disease; many, if taken in time, would be saved.  Suffering, the most intense, but, perhaps, the best endured, from the very nature of