em through
it so as not to disturb in any unseemly manner the cold tenant
slumbering within the black ark.

That second-floor arch in a London house, looking up and down the well
of the staircase and commanding the main thoroughfare by which the
inhabitants are passing; by which cook lurks down before daylight to
scour her pots and pans in the kitchen; by which young master
stealthily ascends, having left his boots in the hall, and let himself
in after dawn from a jolly night at the Club; down which miss comes
rustling in fresh ribbons and spreading muslins, brilliant and
beautiful, and prepared for conquest and the ball; or Master Tommy
slides, preferring the banisters for a mode of conveyance, and
disdaining danger and the stair; down which the mother is fondly
carried smiling in her strong husband's arms, as he steps steadily step
by step, and followed by the monthly nurse, on the day when the medical
man has pronounced that the charming patient may go downstairs; up
which John lurks to bed, yawning, with a sputtering tallow candle, and
to gather up before sunrise the boots which are awaiting him in the
passages--that stair, up or down which babies are carried, old people
are helped, guests are marshalled to the ball, the parson walks to the
christening, the doctor to the sick-room, and the undertaker's men to
the upper floor--what a memento of Life, Death, and Vanity it is--that
arch and stair--if you choose to consider it, and sit on the landing,
looking up and down the well! The doctor will come up to us too for
the last time there, my friend in motley. The nurse will look in at
the curtains, and you take no notice--and then she will fling open the
windows for a little and let in the air. Then they will pull down all
the front blinds of the house and live in the back rooms--then they
will send for the lawyer and other men in black, &c. Your comedy and
mine will have been played then, and we shall be removed, oh, how far,
from the trumpets, and the shouting, and the posture-making. If we
are gentlefolks they will put hatchments over our late domicile, with
gilt cherubim, and mottoes stating that there is "Quiet in Heaven."
Your son will new furnish the house, or perhaps let it, and go into a
more modern quarter; your name will be among the "Members Deceased" in
the lists of your clubs next year. However much you may be mourned,
your widow will like to have her weeds neatly made--the cook will send
or come up