burb from whence the letter was
dated. It so chanced, that to get to that particular end of the
town, he was obliged to pass the house his brother had occupied so
splendidly for a number of years; the servants had lit the lamps, and
were drawing the curtains of the noble dining-room; and a party of
ladies were descending from a carriage, which prevented two others
from setting down. It looked like old times. "Some one else," thought
Charles Adams, "running the same career of wealth and extravagance.
God grant it may not lead to the same results!" He paused, and looked
up the front of the noble mansion; the drawing-room windows were open,
and two beautiful children were standing on an ottoman placed between
the windows, probably to keep them apart. He thought of Mary's
childhood, and how she was occupied at that moment, and hastened
onward. There are times when life seems one mingled dream, and it is
not easy to become dispossessed of the idea when some of its frightful
changes are brought almost together under our view.

"Is Miss Adams at home?" inquired her uncle of a woman leaning against
the door of a miserable house.

"I don't know; she went to the hospital this morning; but I'm not sure
she's in; it's the second pair back; it's easy known, for the sob has
not ceased in that room these two nights; some people do take on so"--

Charles Adams did not hear the concluding sentence, but sought the
room; the door would not close, and he heard a low sobbing sound from
within; he paused, but his step had aroused the mourner--"Come in,
Mary; come in; I know how it is," said a young voice; "he is dead;
one grave for mother and son--one grave for mother and son! I see your
shadow, dark as it is; have you brought a candle? It is very fearful
to be alone with the dead--even one's own mother--in the dark."

Charles Adams entered the room; but his sudden appearance in the
twilight, and evidently not knowing him, overcame the girl, his
youngest niece, so much, that she screamed, and fell on her knees by
her mother's corpse. He called for lights, and was speedily obeyed,
for he put a piece of gold in the woman's hand. She turned it over,
and as she hastened from the room, muttered, "If this had come sooner,
she'd not have died of starvation or burdened the parish for a shroud;
it's hard the rich can't look to their own."

When Mary returned, she was fearfully calm. "No, her brother was not
dead," she said; "the young were longe