ave by a select few of his
countrymen, whose acquaintance he had made during his short residence in
this city. Like thousands of others, who have perished in our midst, he
died, and "left no sign." The newspapers published the item the next
morning, and before the sun had set upon his funeral rites the poor man
was forgotten by all except the immediate persons connected with this
narrative.

To one of them, at least, his death was not only an important event, but
it formed a great epoch in her history.

Lucile was transformed, in a moment of time, from a helpless, confiding,
affectionate girl, into a full-grown, self-dependent, imperious woman.
Such revolutions, I know, are rare in everyday life, and but seldom
occur; in fact, they never happen except in those rare instances where
nature has stamped a character with the elements of inborn originality
and force, which accident, or sudden revulsion, develops at once into
full maturity. To such a soul, death of an only parent operates like the
summer solstice upon the whiter snow of Siberia. It melts away the
weakness and credulity of childhood almost miraculously, and exhibits,
with the suddenness of an apparition, the secret and hitherto unknown
traits that will forever afterwards distinguish the individual. The
explanation of this curious moral phenomenon consists simply in bringing
to the surface what already was in existence below; not in the
instantaneous creation of new elements of character. The tissues were
already there; circumstance hardens them into bone. Thus we sometimes
behold the same marvel produced by the marriage of some characterless
girl, whom we perhaps had known from infancy, and whose individuality we
had associated with cake, or crinoline--a gay humming-bird of social
life, so light and frivolous and unstable, that, as she flitted across
our pathway, we scarcely deigned her the compliment of a thought. Yet a
week or a month after her nuptials, we meet the self-same warbler, not
as of old, beneath the paternal roof, but under her own "vine and
fig-tree," and in astonishment we ask ourselves, "Can this be the
bread-and-butter Miss we passed by with the insolence of a sneer, a
short time ago?" Behold her now! On her brow sits womanhood. Upon her
features beam out palpably traits of great force and originality. She
moves with the majesty of a queen, and astounds us by taking a leading
part in the discussion of questions of which we did not deem she ev