e flowers back in their places, and composed the limbs once
more, and then gently led the old woman to her arm-chair in the outer
room, where she relapsed into her quiet dosing way until all was over.
Once only she looked up as they bore the remains from the dwelling, and
asked in a deprecating voice, "why Archie didn't take her with him;" but
his name did not escape her after that. The rest of her days were a
blank.

Close beside his mother in a green grave they placed the crippled form,
that was to come forth in the resurrection, perchance the more glorified
for its earthly trial. Groups of ragged urchins from the common were
there, respectful and solemn. Old playmates that were now men and women
gathered around the coffin and wept as they remembered the past. Sally
Bunt and Mahan Doughty were among them, but the sincerest mourners--save
one--were Patrick and Molly, who had watched the young man from his
infancy up, and had placed all their hopes upon him. Bowed and broken,
the old man returned to the desolate cottage to minister to the doting
grandmother, whose only claims upon him were that she was allied to the
dead. Day after day would he and Molly ascend to the little chamber to
spend all their weary leisure. There were _his_ books, just as he had
left them, with one opened and turned down upon the table. There were
his clothes, hung by his own hand upon the wall, and there were the
pictures with which his native talent had adorned the room.

Oh! was not the deep affection of the two simple hearts that beat so
fondly to his memory, a worthy tribute? Is there more value in mines of
gold and silver, or in the adoration of a fickle multitude, than in the
unobtrusive homage of those loving and true, though humble ones.

Every effort of his untaught genius was to them as wondrous and
beautiful as if from the pencil of a Raphael or Titian. Every object of
his pleasure or regard was treasured as a sacred thing. Even the
withered flowers that had bedecked his death-couch were preserved with
pious care, and no unloving hand could touch a single article that had
once felt the impress of the now palsied fingers. There was still one
solace for the bereaved old couple, and that was the frequent visits of
Kittie, who seemed to them linked in a mysterious manner with the
departed.

There was a real pleasure to the three, to speak together of the absent
one whose exalted merit they only knew; and the maiden grew more calm
an