vision that greeted my daily
sight from that of former years! The want that admits not of idle wailing
compelled her still to pursue her daily course of labor, and she pursued
it with the same constancy and punctuality as she had ever done. But the
exquisitely chiseled face, the majestic gait, the elastic step--the beauty
and glory of youth, unshaken because unassaulted by death and sorrow--where
were they? Alas! all the bewitching charms of her former being had gone
down into the grave of her mother and sister; and she, their support and
idol, seemed no more now than she really was--a wayworn, solitary, and
isolated struggler for daily bread.

Were this a fiction that I am writing, it would be an easy matter to deal
out a measure of poetical justice, and to recompense poor Ellen for all
her industry, self-denial, and suffering in the arms of a husband, who
should possess as many and great virtues as herself, and an ample fortune
to boot. I wish with all my heart that it were a fiction, and that
Providence had never furnished me with such a seeming anomaly to add to
the list of my desultory chronicles. But I am telling a true story of a
life. Ellen found no mate. No mate, did I say? Yes, one: the same grim
yoke-fellow, whose delight it is "to gather roses in the spring," paid
ghastly court to her faded charms, and won her--who shall say an unwilling
bride? I could see his gradual but deadly advances in my daily walks: the
same indications that gave warning of the sister's fate admonished me that
she also was on her way to the tomb, and that the place that had known her
would soon know her no more. She grew day by day more feeble; and one
morning I found her seated on the step of a door, unable to proceed. After
that she disappeared from my view; and though I never saw her again at the
old spot, I have seldom passed that spot since, though for many years
following the same route, without recognizing again in my mind's eye the
graceful form and angel aspect of Ellen D----.

"And is this the end of your mournful history?" some querulous reader
demands. Not quite. There is a soul of good in things evil. Compassion
dwells with the depths of misery; and in the valley of the shadow of death
dove-eyed Charity walks with shining wings.... It was nearly two months
after I had lost sight of poor Ellen, that during one of my dinner-hour
perambulations about town, I looked in, almost accidentally, upon my old
friend and chum, Jack W