knowing where else to place it—and the physician of its health, sending thither his incurable patients, that they may at least not die under his hands.

Few now assembled but had a remembrance of some of those thousand little kindlinesses which daily occur in the common intercourse of life. How often had her intercession been asked and obtained! Not a cottage but she had been in the habit of visiting. And who does not know that notice is often more gratefully remembered than service?-the one flatters, the other only obliges us. All the children crowded round with mingled impressions of joy and fear, according as memories of gingerbread or the Catechism prevailed; for Emily had taken much delight—perhaps a little pride in her school. Sancho Panza says, it is pleasant to govern, though only a flock of sheep. Mrs. Arundel, however, hurried home-the popularity of another requires strong nerves! - not but that she herself was kind in her own way, and charitable too; but the difference was this the aunt gave and scolded, the niece gave and smiled.

Mr. Arundel had lain down some time. Mrs. Arundel remained in the parlour with the

uncle's room.

medical and legal ladies—she for news, they for luncheon-while Emily stole softly to her Though the light fell full on his face, he was asleep-a calm, beautiful, renovating sleep-and Emily sat down by the bedside. The love which bends over the sleeping is,

save in its sorrow, like the love

which bends over the dead-so deep, so

solemn !

without

awake

Suddenly he opened his eyes, but any thing of the starting return to

consciousness with which people generally Iwith his dream. Without speaking, but with perhaps her appearance harmonised a look of extreme fondness, he took her hand, and, still holding it, slept again.

Emily felt the clasp tighten and tighten, till

the rigidity

the curtains, lest the sun, now come round to was almost painful: she had drawn that side of the house, should shine too power

fully;

gloom;

a strange awe stole over her in the she could scarcely, in its present posi

tion, discern her uncle's face, and she feared to move. The grasp grew tighter, but the hand that held hers colder; his breathing had all along she bent her face over his ; unintentionally-for low, but now it was inaudible. Gently she dreaded to awaken him-her lips touched

been

his; there was no breath to be either heard or felt, and the mouth was like ice. With a sudden, a desperate effort, she freed her hand, from which her uncle's instantly dropped on the bedside, with a noise, slight indeed, but, to her ears, like thunder; she flung open the curtains-again the light came full into the room— and looked on a face which both those who have not, and those who have before seen, alike know to be the face of death.

CHAPTER II.

"And the presence of death was in the house, and the shadows of the grave rested upon it."

"You had far better, Emily, go to bed, and take a little hot wine and water-the nurse can sit up. What," in a lower tone," is she here for?"

"I cannot-indeed I cannot," was the an

swer.

"Well, you always were obstinate;" and Mrs. Arundel took her own advice, viz. the hot wine and water, and the going to bed, leaving Emily to that sad and solemn watch the living keep by the dead.

A week had now elapsed; and let even the most indifferent-those linked to the dead by no ties of love or kindred-say what such a week is. The darkened windows-the empty rooms, whose very furniture looks unfamiliar in

the dim, excluded light—the stealthy steps, the whispering voices-faces with a strange, because necessary, gravity—and, whether it be those bowed down with real affliction, or those whose only feeling can be the general awe of death, all differing from their ordinary selves. And, with one of life's most usual, yet most painful contrasts-while the persons are so much changed, yet the things remain the same. The favourite chair, never to be filled again by its late occupier-the vacant place at table-a picture, perhaps now with more of life than its original-the thousand trifles that recall some taste or habit—and all these things so much more deeply felt when no long illness has already thrown events out of their usual circle, already broken in upon all old accustomed ways. When he who is now departed was amongst us but yesterday—when there has been, as it were, but a step from the fireside to the deathbed-a surprise and a shock add to the sorrow which takes us so unawares. And then the common events that fill up the day in domestic life-the provision for the living made in the presence of the dead; in one room a dinner, in the other a coffin that strange mixture of ordinary occurrence