"
So Mary said, and Dora hid her face
By Mary. There was silence in the room;
And all at once the old man burst in sobs:--
"I have been to blame--to blame. I have kill'd my son.
I have kill'd him--but I loved him--my dear son.
May God forgive me!--I have been to blame.
Kiss me, my children."
Then they clung about
The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times,
And all the man was broken with remorse;
And all his love came back a hundredfold;
And for three hours he sobb'd o'er William's child,
Thinking of William.
So those four abode
Within one house together; and as years
Went forward, Mary took another mate;
But Dora lived unmarried till her death.
MRS. B.'S ALARMS.
BY JAMES PAYN.
Mrs. B. is my wife; and her alarms are those produced by a delusion
under which she labours that there are assassins, gnomes, vampires,
or what not, in our house at night, and that it is my bounden duty to
leave my bed at any hour or temperature, and to do battle with the
same, in very inadequate apparel. The circumstances which attend Mrs.
B.'s alarms are generally of the following kind.
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