r dying than those whom the
world had worn out; the young knew so little of the world, they
thought it hard to leave it;" and she took off her bonnet, and sat
down; and while her uncle explained why he had not written, she looked
at him with eyes so fixed and cold, that he paused, hoping she would
speak, so painful was their stony expression; but she let him go
on, without offering one word of assurance of any kind feeling or
remembrance; and when she stooped to adjust a portion of the coarse
plaiting of the shroud--that mockery of "the purple and fine linen
of living days"--her uncle saw that her hair, her luxuriant hair, was
striped with white.

"There is no need for words now," she said at last; "no need. I
thought you would have sent; she required but little--but very little;
the dust rubbed from the gold she once had would have been riches:
but the little she did require she had not, and so she died; but
what weighs heaviest upon my mind was her calling so continually on
my father, to know _why_ he had deserted her: she attached no blame
latterly to any one, only called day and night upon him. Oh! it was
hard to bear--it was very hard to bear."

"I will send a proper person in the morning to arrange that she may be
placed with my brother," said Charles.

Mary shrieked almost with the wildness of a maniac. "No, no; as far
from him as possible! Oh! not with him! She was to blame in our days
of splendour as much as he was; but she could not see it; and I durst
not reason with her. Not with him! _She would disturb him in his
grave!_"

Her uncle shuddered, while the young girl sobbed in the bitter wailing
tone their landlady complained of.

"No," resumed Mary, "let the parish bury her; even its officers were
kind; and if you bury her, or they, it is still a pauper's funeral. I
see all these things clearly now; death, while it closes the eyes of
some, opens the eyes of others; it has opened mine."

But why should I prolong this sad story. It is not the tale of one,
but of many. There are dozens, scores, hundreds of instances of the
same kind, _arising from the same cause_, in our broad islands. In
the lunatic asylum, where that poor girl, even Mary Adams, has found
refuge during the past two years, there are many cases of insanity
arising from change of circumstances, where a fifty pounds' insurance
would have set such maddening distress at defiance. I know that
her brother died in the hospital within a few days;