Part 32 (2/2)

”O, Josiah,” she sobbed, ”who'd have thought it! The best, the kindest husband a woman ever had O! how sorry I aood--never to find fault when I scolded

I icked--and yet all the time I loved you so Did you know it, Josiah? If you were back again, how different I would treat you! The fire should always be burning bright, and the hearth clean, when you ca, and you should never, never askBut you don't hear ? Here,” she said, raising herself up, and addressing those next her, ”take hiered and fainted, and would have fallen, had she not been caught in the ar chamber, and applied the usual restoratives This caused some little delay, but, after a tie the four bearers, whose hats he took into his own hands, to restore them to the owners when the coffin should be placed in the hearse--a plain black wagon, with black cloth curtains--waiting at the door The coffin was taken up by thely; after which, they took their places in front of the hearse, while the four pall-bearers ranged thenal from the director of the cere space for the carriages to approach the door Mr Are was driven up, and theand children, with two or three females, were assisted in Then followed a few other vehicles, with the nearest relatives, after whoe number of persons had previously formed themselves into a procession before the hearse, headed by the minister, ould have been acco poor Sill's passage to the other world easier

The round--a piece of broken land on the top At the ti-place of the departed of Hillsdale presented a different appearance froroith briers, it looked repulsive to the living, and unworthy of the dead

The tender sentiment which associates beauty with the reen and rose around their graves, seemed then not to have touched the bosoe has succeeded The briars have been removed, trees planted, and when necessary to be laid out, new burial-ground spots have been selected remarkable for attractiveness and susceptibility of improvement The brook has been led in and conducted in tortuous paths, as if to lull with a soft hymn the tired sleepers, and then expanded into a fairy lake, around which the weepinglets fall its graceful pendants The white pine, the various species of firs, the rhododendron, mixed with the maple, the elm, and the tulip tree, have found their way into the sacred enclosure The reproach of Puritanic insensibility is wiped out Europe may boast of prouder monuments, but she has no burial-places so beautiful as some of ours

Pere la Chaise is splendid inSweet Auburn, and Greenwood, and Laurel Hill are peerless in their rave in silence No solemn voice pronounced the farewell ”ashes to ashes, dust to dust” The ceremonies were concluded Thethe bystanders, so his exas from their heads, thanked them in the naard The procession was forrave-digger to shovel in the gravel and co and Faith walked hoed between them Each was absorbed in reflection upon the scene just witnessed In Faith's loolearave She looked beyond, and hoped and trusted

But with her father it was different Had it not been for hiht have been alive and well He had made the wife aand her children orphans He had introduced weeping and wailing into a happy hoht calaht in comparison with another The words of the minister, that the victim had been hurried to his sentence without ti of horror It was he through whose instru but undestroying flames Better that he had never been born Better that he had been strangled in the hour of his birth

With thoughts like these, this unhappy man, whose heart was the seat of all the virtues, tore that people did not point their fingers at him: that he was not arrested for the murder: that he was permitted to walk abroad in the sunshi+ne His mind, unknown to those about hi on the confines of insanity Only a spark, perhaps, was necessary to light a conflagration Alas! that one so good, so noble, should be a victim of destiny But we forbear to intrude further into reflections alikefelt more composed the next day, and in the afternoon, acco of theThey found her engaged in ordinary fa must be respected To neither rich nor poor does sorrow furnish an excuse for their neglect Let theto do Thus do we become sooner reconciled to those dispensations of Providence at which our weakness, and ignorance, and presumption rebel

The poor woman received them kindly, and offered chairs Faith took into her lap the younger child fro a crust of brown bread, and began to talk to him The round eyes of the boy expressed his astonish face and heard more of the sweet voice, the alarer subsided, and he s innocence which children return to the caresses of those who are fond of them

”Jimmy doesn't knohat a loss he's had,” said Mrs Sill

”Jirow up to take care of his mother bye and bye, and repay her for so the boy

”O, Josiah and Jione I don't knohat I should do without the had called the elder boy, Josiah, to his side, and the little fellow had quickly beco it pleased the child, he took the watch and held it to his ear, at which the countenance of the boy becaht ”O, Ji released the watch into the hands of Josiah, who ran with it to his brother

”He will drop it,” exclai the watch fro it to Mr

Ar

”Keep it,” he said, ”for Josiah, to associate rows up, with his father's death”

”You don't old watch?” said Mrs Sill, still holding it out towards hi, ”I intended it for hiive him all I have if I could thereby restore his father to life”

This observation renewed in full force the sorrow of the poor wo her face with her apron, sobbed and wept bitterly

Faith looked at her father with an expression which see understood the appeal, but he had that in his hter, and after a pause he proceeded

”I have more property than I deserve, and what better use can I put it to than give it to the deserving? You will find in that,” he continued, handing a paper to the hat will entitle you to a little inco your life I hope it will enable you to take better care of your children”

Mrs Sill took the paperthe extent of the gift She kept turning it round and round in her fingers, as if not knohat to do with it

”Everybody knows you're a kind ;” at last she said, ”But I guess I shant want anything long in this world”

”I hope you , ”for the sake of the little boys”