m athwart the
darkness, and send forth its pilgrim rays to meet him and guide his
footsteps to his threshold. No wife, no children, waited eagerly his
return. It was the miser's home--dark, desolate, stern, and repulsive.
Its deep cellars, its thick walls held hidden stores of gold, and
notes, and bonds, but there were garnered up no treasures of the
heart.

The miser's path lay through the churchyard, a desolate place enough
even in the gay noon of a midsummer day, now doubly repulsive in the
wild midnight of midwinter. The wall was ruinous. The black iron
gateway frowned, naked and ominous. The field of death was crowded
with headstones of slate, and innumerable mounds marked the
resting-place of many generations. The snow was now gathering fast
over the dreary and desolate abode, as the miser stumbled along the
beaten pathway, bending against the blast and drift. A strange
numbness and drowsiness crept over him. He no longer felt the cold; an
uncontrollable desire of slumber possessed him. He sat down upon a
flat tombstone, and soon lost all consciousness of his actual
situation.

Suddenly he saw before him the well-known figure of the old sexton of
the village, busily occupied in digging a grave. The winter had passed
away; it was now midsummer. The birds were singing in the trees, and
from the far green meadows sounded the low of cattle, and the tinkling
of sheep bells. Even the graveyard looked no longer desolate, for on
many of the little hillocks bright flowers were springing into bloom
and verdure, attesting the affection that outlived death, and
decorating with living bloom the precincts of decay.

"My friend, for whom are you digging that grave?" asked Israel.

The sexton looked up from his work, but did not seem to recognize the
spokesman.

"For a man that died last night; he is to be buried to-day."

"Methinks this haste is somewhat indecorous," said Israel Wurm.

"O, for the matter of that," said the sexton, "the sooner this
fellow's out of the way the better. There's nobody to mourn for him."

"Is he a pauper, then?"

"O no! he was immensely rich."

"And had he no relations--no friends?"

"For relations, he had a nephew, who inherits all his property. The
young dog will make the money fly, I tell you. As for friends, he had
none. The poor dreaded him--the good despised him; for he was a
hardhearted, selfish, griping man. In a word, he was a MISER," said the
sexton.

"A miser," faltered th