SKETCHES OF MARRIED LIFE.

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he will be always with his father. Now my husband will pity me. Now God will forgive me, and take me to his care. Have I not bound and laid upon his altar my firstborn - my only son? Will no angel provide me with a burnt-offering, to take the place of

my heart's treasure?

held my son

Yet I have not with

- my only son.

Will not God

Be very still,

pity me now, and let me die?

that I may hear the angel call to me out of He tells me that God has ac

the heavens. cepted my sacrifice. Yes; his father promised to take him. I have saved my son. Don't let Willy say good-bye to me; I can't hear good-bye from Willy; but let him hug me close, closer, oh! closer still, till he stops this pain in my heart. — One of these days, when it will not make him cry to hear her name, tell him pretty stories about his mother, and sing him the little songs she wrote for him; tell him once she was merry, so merry, more merry than wise. You need not tell him how much she loved him; he never will forget it. Willy knows his mother loves him. But his father does not know so well as his boy does about his Fanny; and he is a grown-up man, and my Willy is a little child, and yet he knows more than his father.

O, Willy, Willy, must I let you go? must I sacrifice this Isaac of my soul?"

Such heart-rending expressions as these was Roberts doomed to hear, from his suffering wife, for three long, agonizing weeks, when, suddenly, after a long and more quiet sleep than she had had for some time, she opened her eyes, and knew her husband, who was sitting by her bed-side, watching her with an intense anxiety in his face.

"Give me a little drink, my dear," she said.

O, had that cup of cold water, which her husband gave her then, purchased for himself eternal life, he would hardly have experienced a greater joy than he felt, when he saw Fanny lift up her bright blue eye calmly to his, and heard the music of her natural voice, as she pronounced his name, and gave signs of recovered reason.

Roberts, who was unaccustomed to severe illness, was alarmed to find that his wife's recovery from the delirium was accompanied by a childlike weakness of mind, as well as body; and, but for his physician, he would have been thrown into utter despair, at hearing her speak of herself and him with a total forgetfulness of all that had passed during

their residence in New York. She thought that she was in Boston, and that her illness was occasioned by her confinement, and was continually asking for the baby, who, she said, must be called Willy. They pacified her by telling her that the doctor thought her too ill to see him. Her husband was the only person she knew.

said to him, "what

How sweet it is to

You can see our let me see him.

"Dear William," she a good nurse you are! have you take care of me! boy, though they will not Who does he look like? It is to be hoped that he will have your nose and my eyes; and if he has your sense, pray let him have my nonsense, or there will be two against one, which is no fair, as the boys say."

It seemed as if her husband's heart would now burst with joy, as it before had been near breaking with hopeless misery. Sometimes he almost felt selfish enough to dread her gaining strength, and recovering her memory, lest she should again lose her love for him.

Gradually, Fanny began to recollect the past. A most careful, skilful, and tender nurse had assisted her husband in taking charge of her during her illness, and still

more critical recovery; and she seemed much attached and very dependent upon her. About a week after the recovery of her reason, she said to her husband, when the nurse was out of the room, "I have an indistinct recollection of having seen that woman. I remember her gown; and I cannot tell how it is, but it makes me want to laugh when I look at it; and I don't like her then. But I never knew such a devoted, tender, excellent nurse. What is her name?"

Her husband evaded the question.

"It seems to me that I have seen that gown before," said Fanny, with a deep, low emphasis, and a sort of self-questioning tone. "It seems to me, William, as if that woman brought some horrid dream to my mind."

"Remember," said her husband, "that you have been very ill; and the doctor says that you must be very quiet."

"May I not see my boy to-day?" said Fanny.

"If the doctor consents, my love, you shall."

"How kind you are to me, William!" said his wife, kissing his hand, which was holding hers. "You will always love me; will you not?"

So help me God, I will!" replied her husband.

Fanny gained strength so fast, that in a few days the doctor thought her husband might venture, when she asked for her baby, to tell her of the effect of her illness, and let her see her boy.

"Can you be very calm," said Roberts, when she asked for her child, "can you be very calm, and hear what I have to say?"

"Yes," she answered. "I am getting strong so fast, that I can promise even to be quiet."

"You must know," said her husband, "that the fever you have had has destroyed, for the time, your memory. Your boy is three years old, and you think he is only three weeks. We are in New York - not

in Boston."

"And why are we here?" said Fanny; "why are we here in New York? O, now I remember I have not seen Amy this long while."

"My father sent for me to come and live with him."

"Did he?" said Fanny, with a vacant and yet troubled look, like that of a person coming to his senses, after being stunned.