accepted as surety. The rooms were measured for carpets, the hall for oil-cloth, and various orders given to be executed before the first of May. Next came the preparations for the auction. The day fixed was the twenty-seventh of April. The auctioneers were the well-known house of A. A. Lee and Company. The list was carefully prepared; the reserved articles selected; those sold to Mr. Williams marked off, and a correct catalogue printed. Already had advertisements appeared in the daily papers, of the magnificent sale of household furniture at No. Broadway, which should take place on the twenty-seventh day of April. The description was in the best style of Lee and Company, and all the concomitants worthy the name and fame of those accomplished auctioneers. A few more days, and all would be going, going, gone! CHAPTER XVII. DEATH. THERE was no auction at our house on the twenty-seventh day of April. No moving out of it on the first day of May. A darkened chamber, a woman wearing a professional air of solemn solicitude near the bed, careful footsteps, voices scarcely above a whisper, loving countenances mournful, despairing, were tokens that some one "appointed to die" lay on that couch, and that the time drew near. The motions and counter-motions with Bulldog were no longer pressed; adjournments were consented to without question; delay granted on either side. For in that hour none were so hardy as not to acknowledge and pay respect to the approach of the destroyer. It was sudden and swift. Another fresh cold led to acute inflammation of the lungs, and death was to follow. It is not my design to attempt to portray my anguish those few days, nor how, watching by the bed-side of my wife, I beheld her sink and die. There are some of you who know what it is to hold the hand of the one most dear to you, and watch the feeble pulse, and while in your grasp to have it flutter and stop, It is a fearful moment, first filling your soul with awe and terror before the fountains of the heart can be loosed, and grief come to your relief. The history would be impressive, but could convey no new impression. It was past the middle of the afternoon, on the third of May; a pleasant day with warm sunshine and a balmy atmosphere. I returned to my wife's chamber, having been absent perhaps a half-hour. She asked me to send the nurse down stairs, and to tell Alice to leave the room for a few moments. My heart beat violently, for I knew Florence designed to take a last farewell. I did as she desired, and sat down by her side; it was the last scene of the drama, commencing with that pleasant little party in September, when--I am foolish to recall it let it pass. "Charles, it is coming, we have little to say to each other, for our whole life has been rounded from day to day by love. I leave you; I leave you to encounter misery and degrada tion, and what shall seem disgrace, but through all you will preserve your integrity, and at the last there will come a season of repose. GOD permits me to see this, and to tell you, O my husband!" After a pause she con tinued: "I have one request to make;" her voice trembled. "Keep them together. Keep them all around you. Promise me-you will not separate." "Never! while I have life, never!" I murmured. "Kiss me: call the children!" She died that evening. CHAPTER XVIII. MOURNING. "THE dark sail shifts from side to side, The oar breaks short, the rudder's lost." I NEED not tell the reader how, the morning after my wife died, I rose with a feeling of utter insensibility and indifference to all that was transpiring. It seemed as if the world should stop in its daily avocations, and I could not realize that its machinery was in motion just as ever. I recollect going into the hall, and mechanically opening the streetdoor, and gazing out on Broadway. The sun shone glaringly. Why should the sun shine any more? Omnibuses and carriages of every description rolled noisily along. Why were they not silent? Business men were hastening to their several offices and counting-rooms. How useless! People of various conditions would stop and exchange cheerful salutations and lively pleasantries. Did they know she was dead? So entirely do we color and shape externals out of our own profound egotism. This period is generally a brief one in the experience of the mourner, especially if we be forced quickly back into the current from which we were withdrawn. After the funeral-we buried my wife in Greenwood my thoughts turned by necessity to my children. For a time, however, I found it impossible to summon the least energy or resolution. My situation is best described by the lines I have placed at the head of this chapter. I was nerveless, purposeless, regardless of the present, and without the least care for the future. This season too has its limits, and even if, unlike my own case, we are not roused prematurely by stern necessity, the feelings gradually get into their former channels; the world which we regarded with indifference and disgust by degrees. presents itself with the old charm, and we find ourselves returning its smile and friendly greeting. Soon we forget the poignancy of that grief which held so complete control over us; and lo! again we walk abroad, subdued somewhat by our sad experience, somewhat more timid perhaps in view of future possibilities, but wedded firmly as ever to our old habits, enjoying our old delights, eager in our old pursuits. There is something more melancholy in the transitory nature of our mourning than in the affliction which causes it. Deep grief, while it lasts, lifts us above all earthly considerations, and we feel self-reproached when first forced to admit any returning sensibility with regard to them. Yes, it is a melancholy idea that we must come back after accompanying the loved spirit part way on the journey heavenward. But is the short period of our mourning humiliating to human nature? Does it indicate that it is capricious and unreliable? I do not think so. It would be impossible to live in this world of ours and carry around always such sharp grief. We may indulge in a tender melancholy, sof |