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Not disposed, however, to sit down and brood over her difficulties, which only made them worse, she went to work in the best spirit possible to overcome them. She obtained more work, and bent herself again over her daily employment.

She was sitting with an aching head and troubled heart at her work on the next morning, having only sought a brief repose through the night, when a smart tap at the door roused her from her abstraction of mind.

“Does Mrs. Wilmer live here, ma’am?” asked a man.

“That is my name.”

“Then I am directed to leave this basket,”–and the man deposited his burden on the floor, and was gone before another word could be spoken.

Mrs. Wilmer stood for a moment in mute surprise, and then removed the covering off the basket. It contained tea, coffee, sugar, rice, meat, bread, and various other articles of food; and also, a letter directed to “Constance Wilmer.” She broke the seal with an anxious and trembling heart. It contained a fifty dollar note, and these brief words:–

“Put by your work–you are cared for–there is help coming, and now very nigh–be of good cheer!”

The coarse garment she still held in her hand, fell to the floor. Her fingers released themselves from it by an instinctive effort which she could not control. Her head reeled for a moment, and she sunk into a chair, overcome by a tumult of contending feelings. From this, she was aroused by the voice of her husband, who anxiously inquired the contents of the letter. He read it, and saw the enclosure, and the supply of food in the basket, and then clasped his hands and looked up with mute thankfulness to heaven. Mrs. Wilmer obeyed, with a confidence for which she could not account, the injunction of her stranger-friend, and almost hourly for the first day referred to the characters of the letter, which seemed familiar to her eye. That she had seen the writing before, she was certain; but where, or when, she could not tell.

Relieved from daily care and toil, she had more time to give to her sick husband. She found him nearer the grave than she had supposed.

Four days more passed away, and Wilmer had come down to the very brink of the dark river of death.

It was night. The two younger children were asleep, and the oldest boy, just in his tenth year, with his mother, stood anxiously over the low bed, upon which lay, gasping for breath, the dying husband and father. The widow, who cannot forget the dear image of her departed one; the orphan, who remembers the dying agony of a fond father, can realize in a great degree the sorrows which pressed upon the hearts of these lone watchers by the bed of death.

The last hours of Wilmer’s life were hours of distinct consciousness.

“Constance,” he whispered, in a low difficult whisper, while his bright eyes were fixed upon her face–“Constance, what will you do when I am gone? I am but a burden on you now; but my presence I feel is something.”

His stricken-hearted wife could make no answer; but the tears rolled over her face in great drops, and fell fast upon the pillow of her dying husband.

“I cannot say, ‘do not weep,'” continued Wilmer. “O that I could give a word of comfort! but your cup is full, running over, and I cannot dash it from your lips:–Dear Constance! you have been to me a wife and a mother. Let me feel your warm cheek once more against mine, for it is cold, very cold. Hark! did you not hear voices?” And he strained his eyes towards the door, half-lifting himself up.

For a few moments he looked eagerly for some one to enter, and then fell back upon the bed with a heavy sigh, murmuring to himself, in a low disappointed tone–

“I thought they were coming.”

“Who, love?” asked Mrs. Wilmer, eagerly. But her husband did not seem to hear her question; but lay gasping for breath, the muscles of his neck and face distorted and giving to his countenance the ghastly expression of death.