e map of busy life. The day had closed, dark, dreary and
cheerless. The rain and sleet were driven furiously before the wind,
and the child of want shrank from the biting blast, as stern necessity
drove him forth to meet the peltings of the winter storm.

There was a social gathering at a large, elegantly finished and
furnished hall, splendidly illuminated with its brilliant gas lights,
diffusing a lustre upon gorgeous trappings with which they were
surmounted.

The streets resounded with the rattling wheels of omnibusses, cabs and
various vehicles, as they bore the gay and fashionable part of the
village to the splendid hall.

Soft music charmed the ear, and floated in sweet melody through the
apartment. Beauty was there, with rosy cheek and brilliant eye.
Fashion displayed her most tasteful arrangements, and each one seemed
vieing with the other in elegance of costume. All looked like the
enchanting scenes pictured in fairy tales, and one might almost
suppose Alladin's wonderful lamp was still extant, performing its
mysterious spells, and casting a supernatural lustre over the gay
group that assembled, to dissipate the cheerless gloom that reigned
without, by mirth and hilarity. And they joined in the mazy dance, and
spent the hours of night in joyous revelry. A sumptuous entertainment
was prepared, and everything provided to satisfy the votaries of
pleasure.

But as the lively music sounded from that splendid hall, it stole upon
the

"Cold, dull ear of death,"

for, but a few rods distant, lay a female, little passed the meridian
of life (who had lived in the same village, and trod in the pathway of
life with them many years), wrapped in the shroud of death, and next
day to be borne away to the tomb, and shut out forever from all the
scenes where she had once been an actress. But now she would look out
upon the world no more. Her eyes were closed in death, and her ear
heard not the wild music that was stealing through her otherwise
silent chamber.

All of earth had passed from her vision. Life, with its stern, cold
realities, or its light toned revelry, could awaken no response in her
inanimate form.

A brother had been summoned from a distant village to attend her
funeral. He had travelled, notwithstanding the inclemency of the
weather, and when the shades of twilight fell over the earth, he stood
by that dearly loved form. Memory brought back the past. That cold,
pulseless one was a child again, sport