her husband had been reading at leisure moments the last
day or two.

The book she had never before observed. It was "The Following of
Christ." She opened where was his mark; and this mark was, for this
time, a tiny rose she had handed him that very morning. She pressed to
her lips the rose, which was yet fragrant, though faded. She commenced
to sing carelessly:

"Ye may break, ye may ruin the vase if ye will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still,"

when the heading of the Chapter, which the rose had marked, caught her
eye, "Of the thoughts of death."

"A very little while and all will be over with thee here. See to it, how
it stands with thee in the next life. Man to-day is, and to-morrow he is
seen no more. If thou art not prepared to-day, how wilt thou be
to-morrow?

"To-morrow is an uncertain day, and how knowest thou if thou shalt have
to-morrow?"

"No wonder his mind is sober and solemn, with such reading as this,"
mused Juliet, but she continued.

Fire bells commenced to ring. Was this so uncommon an occurrence as to
cause Juliet to drop her book and press her hand to her heart?

"What does it mean? I am so fearfully nervous. It is not our house that
is on fire."

She walked to a window; ah, the fire was near, but a few squares
distant; the slight wind, however, would bear it in an opposite
direction. There was no occasion for fear. Juliet took up her book
again, and read a few pages. She was reading these passages a second
time, and with something like a thrill of awe, for they seemed to be
spoken to herself:

"Be therefore always in readiness, and so live that death may never find
thee unprepared.

"Many die suddenly and unprovidedly; for the Son of Man will come at the
hour when He is not looked for.

"When that last hour shall have come, then thou wilt begin to think far
otherwise of all thy past life; and great will be thy grief that thou
hast been so neglectful and remiss."

The door-bell rang violently. Juliet made an effort to rise from her
chair, but sank back weak as an infant. Her face turned deadly pale, and
she clenched the closed book in her pallid hands.

There was a confused sound in the room below; the tread of men and
subdued voices. Suddenly, above these, she caught a groan. This broke
the spell; she flew rather than walked to the small parlor so strangely
occupied.

A knot of men separated slightly as she drew near. O God of Heaven, was
that her husba