Lucy Lee returned rather unexpectedly last evening. Her brother Joseph did not know her; and the physician thought it not safe for her to be there. To say the least, it was exceedingly unpleasant to the dear girl. There were no women to be seen in the establishment. It required the strength of two men to manage him during his fits of frenzy. Lucy wept as she confessed she could have submitted to every inconvenience to be with him, were it not for his horribly profane and lewd conversation. He seemed living over again midnight scenes of debauchery. "Oh! _Oh!!_" exclaimed the poor weeping girl, "I never imagined anything half so awful." She only saw her brother twice, once on the morning and again in the afternoon of the day of her arrival. She said, even the attendants who were used to such scenes, confessed that they had never witnessed one half so bad.
Emily came home early this morning, and has interested us much in her account of Squire Lee. She says, it is hard for her to realize that he is the same man who so cruelly spurned his innocent, trembling daughter from his feet, so lovingly does he now speak to her.
At the usual hour for him to hear reading, Emily brought out the Bible and began the story of Christ's sufferings and death. Chapter after chapter was called for and listened to with breathless interest. When Emily closed the book, he looked around as if missing something, and sister saw his eye rest on a book of prayer. She arose and brought it to him, not exactly understanding what was expected. He shook his head.
"Would you like to hear a prayer?" He bowed his assent, and turning to the prayer for the day of the week, and kneeling near him, she read aloud.
His right hand supported his head, and when sister arose, the tears were trickling through his fingers and down upon his cheeks. Several times, she heard him say, "poor Joseph, soul and body--lost by rum--God forgive me." Many similar expressions fell from his lips.
Allen came in every day during Lucy's absence, and Emily thought that the old gentleman received pleasure from his visits. He was a great assistance to her in changing the position of the sufferer, whose left side is so paralyzed as to render it impossible for him to raise himself from the easy chair in which he sits.