get herself in ministering to
the happiness and pleasures of others. She was not, as I learn, a
member of the church, having some scruples in respect to the rituals, as
was natural from her education in New England, among Puritanic
schismatics; but she lived a devout life, and her quiet and
unostentatious piety exemplified the truth of the language of one of the
greatest of our divines, the Bishop of Down and Connor 'Prayer is the
peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the issue of a quiet
mind, the daughter of charity, and the sister of meekness.' Optimus
animus est pulcherrimus Dei cultus.

"R. G."

TALES AND SKETCHES

MY SUMMER WITH DR. SINGLETARY.

A FRAGMENT.

CHAPTER I. DR. SINGLETARY IS DEAD!

Well, what of it? All who live die sooner or later; and pray who was
Dr. Singletary, that his case should claim particular attention?

Why, in the first place, Dr. Singletary, as a man born to our common
inheritance of joy and sorrow, earthly instincts and heavenward
aspirations,--our brother in sin and suffering, wisdom and folly, love,
and pride, and vanity,--has a claim upon the universal sympathy.
Besides, whatever the living man may have been, death has now invested
him with its great solemnity. He is with the immortals. For him the
dark curtain has been lifted. The weaknesses, the follies, and the
repulsive mental and personal idiosyncrasies which may have kept him
without the sphere of our respect and sympathy have now fallen off, and
he stands radiant with the transfiguration of eternity, God's child, our
recognized and acknowledged brother.

Dr. Singletary is dead. He was an old man, and seldom, of latter years,
ventured beyond the precincts of his neighborhood. He was a single man,
and his departure has broken no circle of family affection. He was
little known to the public, and is now little missed. The village
newspaper simply appended to its announcement of his decease the
customary post mortem compliment, "Greatly respected by all who knew
him;" and in the annual catalogue of his alma mater an asterisk has been
added to his name, over which perchance some gray-haired survivor of his
class may breathe a sigh, as he calls up, the image of the fresh-faced,
bright-eyed boy, who, aspiring, hopeful, vigorous, started with him on
the journey of life,--a sigh rather for himself than for its unconscious
awakener.

But, a few years have passed since he left us; ye