The poor old man, the worldly cold old man, was giving way.
Happy misery! for his breaking heart revealed a glorious jewel at the core.

Oh, sorrow beyond price! for natural affections, bursting up amid these unsunned snows, were a hot-spring to that Iceland soul.

Oh, bitter, bitter penitence most blest! which broke down the money-proud man, which bruised and kneaded him, humbled, smote, and softened him, and made him come again a little child--a loving, yearning, little child--a child with pity in its eyes, with prayer upon its tongue, with generous affection in its heart.

"Oh, Maria! precious, cast-off child, where art thou, where art thou, where art thou--starving?
And canst thou, blessed God, forgive?
And will not thy great mercy bring her to me yet again?
Oh, what a treasury of love have I mis-spent; what riches of the Heart, what only truest wealth, have I, poor prodigal, been squandering! Unhappy son--unhappy father of the perjured, heartless, miserable John! Wo is me! Where art thou, dear child, my pure and best Maria ?" We may well guess, far too well, how it was that dear Maria came not near him.

She had been, prior to confinement, very, very ill: nigh to death: the pangs of travail threatened to have seized upon her all too soon, when wasted with sorrow, and weakened by want.