"Have you any friends that you should like to see here particularly?" asked the doctor. "Yes -one; but I suppose it would be in vain for me to desire it." "It is a lady to whom I am engaged. Her father would never consent to her coming." As Edward said this, his face grew deadly pale again. "Do you think," said the doctor, "that you could bear the excitement of seeing her, if she were to come?" "O, yes! yes! it would restore me to life. When I am asleep, I dream she is by my bedside. I dreamed yesterday that she had come to me; but it would be too great happiness to be real." "I think not. I think you may see her," said the doctor. "How could I? Would she come? Is it possible?" "Yes. She is now on the island; and if you could promise to behave like a rational being, and keep yourself calm, you may see her. I think it would not hurt you." "Thank God! thank God! This is more than I hoped;" and as he clasped his hands, and looked up to heaven, he wept like a child. "I feel that I am very weak," he said, after a few minutes; "but it will do me good to see her, and I will be quite calm." "Refrain even from speaking," said the doctor. "Remember your life is at stake. I will bring friend to you." your "Fear not," said Amy, as the doctor was urging her to be very calm. "I will be as quiet and discreet as you can desire." bed-side. Softly and quietly she approached Edward's As she stooped to kiss his feverish lips, she whispered, "Remember, dear Edward, you must be very still and calm, or I cannot be with you. Say nothing now." Edward did not attempt to utter a word; he could not. He took her hand-covered it with kisses; he put it on his dry, aching forehead, and he felt as if it had a healing power in it. As Amy stooped over her lover's pillow, looking intently at him, her whole soul in her face, it seemed as if a light went forth from it, that might have revived the dying. "O, Amy," he said, "that look alone would restore me." "Hush! hush!" she said, " or I must leave you." The physician was right in his opinion that Edward's disease had begun to yield; but his residence in the hot climate of Canton had so deranged his system, that he required the strictest attention and the most watchful care, to prevent a relapse, which would, in all probability, have been fatal. How often did Amy rejoice that she was present, to administer all those little, nameless comforts which contribute so much to the relief of the patient, during the long hours of feverish restlessness, which belong to a lingering recovery from severe illness! She read to him; she sang to him; she sat silent with him, at her sewing-work, for hours together. As he became able to engage in conversation, she told him of her father's loss of property. "Forgive me," said Edward, as she mentioned this, "forgive me for rejoicing that I now may prove to your father that my love for you was disinterested; and at the opportunity it affords me of serving him. What I have will, I hope, be sufficient." Amy also acquainted Edward with her anxiety about Fanny and her husband. One or two letters passed between Amy and Fanny, during her stay at the island, one of which, from Fanny, we transcribe. Dear Amy, I am rejoiced to hear that Edward is really getting well. How the good folks, who take such excellent care of their neighbors, will stare, and wonder, and moralize at your conduct, in going to Hospital Island, to take care of him! Mrs. Lovell, in especial; with her sentimentality on the one hand, and her worldly-mindedness on the other, how can she find safety in any opinion upon the subject? She will have to maintain a sort of armed neutrality, ready to side with whichever shall prove not the weaker, but the stronger party. How is it, Amy, that I am not jealous of you? When I told Mr. Roberts of your going to the island, to take care of Edward, in spite of contagion and scandal, he answered, "If it were any other woman I know, I should be surprised; but Amy always acts with sense and feeling, and without asking what people will say." It is very true, you are the only woman he knows, who he thinks always acts right. Why did he not marry you? Edward and I might have consoled ourselves, perhaps, by making the best or the worst of each other. He is rather of the touch-me-not order; and we should have quarrelled merrily from morning till night, one day, and been delightful with all our might to each other all the next, to make up for it. What a pleasing variety our lives would have presented! We should not have had any long accounts on hand, but have paid off every charge as we went along. Now, my husband has terrible arrears against me; and, ah! if he ever calls upon me for a just settlement, what a poor bankrupt I shall be! Bankrupt, alas! in that only wealth that can never be recovered when once lost — happiness Happiness! that word invented by some star-gazing poet; all the better for his purpose, because it is so purely ideal. 1 But I am turning away from my subject, which was, the moral uses of quarrels among friends. I have changed my opinion upon this subject. I used to think that it was best to pass over slight offences; but I tell you, Amy, a little, short, well-bred, matrimonial quarrel, though somewhat disagreeable at first, is useful in the end. It is like a dose of cream of tartar; it sweetens the blood. Or, if you will have a more poetical comparison, it is like a slight thunder-storm; and the clearing up is so beautiful! and then comes the rainbow of reconciliation; and the air is so much purer and fresher afterwards! I am enamored of the very thought of a quarrel with my husband. But he never gives me an opportunity. He never speaks; and he is so civil, and so serious. If he would only box my ears, or whip me with a stick as big, or bigger, than the law allows, I should" be very angry," you |