the
age of nineteen, of consumption. A daughter grew to womanhood, and
became the wife of a clergyman.

After many years of very great prosperity in business, Mr. Sigourney
experienced heavy losses, which compelled them to leave their pleasant
residence, and gave a new activity to her pen. He died at the age of
seventy-six. During the last seven years of Mrs. Sigourney's life, her
chief literary employment was contributing to the columns of the _New
York Ledger_. Mr. Bonner, having while an apprentice in the _Hartford
Current_ office "set up" some of her poems, had particular pleasure in
being the medium of her last communications with the public, and she
must have rejoiced in the vast audience to which he gave her access--the
largest she ever addressed.

Mrs. Sigourney enjoyed excellent health to within a few weeks of her
death. After a short illness, which she bore with much patience, she
died in June, 1865, with her daughter at her side, and affectionate
friends around her. Nothing could exceed her tranquility and resignation
at the approach of death. Her long life had been spent in honorable
labor for the good of her species, and she died in the fullest certainty
that death would but introduce her to a larger and better sphere.

* * * * *

LIV.

OLD AGE AND USEFULNESS

THE GLORY OF BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN.

Dear Lord! I thank thee for a life of use;
Dear Lord! I do not pine for any truce.
Peace, peace has always come from duty done;
Peace, peace will so until the end be won.
Thanks, thanks! a thankful heart is my reward;
Thanks, thanks befit the children of the Lord.
Wind, wind! the peaceful reel must still go round;
Wind, wind! the thread of life will soon be wound.
The worker has no dread of growing old;
First, years of toil, and then the age of gold!
For lo! he hopes to bear his flag unfurled
Beyond the threshold of another world.

John Foster, he who sprang into celebrity from one essay, _Popular
Ignorance_, had a diseased feeling against growing old, which seems to
us to be very prevalent. He was sorry to lose every parting hour. "I
have seen a fearful sight to-day," he would say--"I have seen a
buttercup." To others the sight would only give visions of the coming
Spring and future Summer; to him it told of the past year, the last
Christmas, the days which would never come again--the so many days
nearer the grav