Things were in this state, and the sufferer’s death daily expected, when we were called away from the place, to pay a distant visit. On our return home after some weeks’ absence, one of the first persons we saw was young Mrs D—— dressed in the deepest widow’s weeds—a moving mass of crape. It was on a Sunday morning going to church; she was walking along the road before us, stepping out with wonderful briskness, we thought, considering her very recent bereavement. We had to quicken our pace to come up with her, and said when we did so: ‘We are so sorry for you, so very sorry! You have lost your husband.’ ‘Thank you kindly; you were always good,’ she said, lifting up her heavy crape veil from off a face radiant with smiles. ‘He isn’t dead at all, glory be to God! an’ ’tis recovering beautiful he is. The doctor says if he goes on gettin’ up his strength as he’s doing the last fortnight, he’ll soon be finely; out and about in no time.—Oh, the clothes, is it? Sure ’twas himself, the dear man, bought them for me! When he was that bad there wasn’t a spark of hope, he calls me over to him, an’ “Katie my heart,” sez he, “I’m going from you. The doctors have gave me up, and you’ll be a lone widow before long, my poor child. And when I’m gone, jewel, and you’re left without a head or provider, there’ll be no one in the wide world to give you a stitch of clothes or anything conformable. So I’ll order them home now, darlin’, the best that can be got for money; for I’d like to leave you dacent and respectable behind me.” And your honours,’ she went on, ‘so he did. Two golden guineas he gev for the bonnet; and as for the gownd, ladies dear, only feel the stuff that’s in it, and ye may guess what _that_ cost. And beautiful crape, no end of a price!—every whole thing the hoight of good quality—top lot of the shop, and no stint.—Well,’ she continued, ‘there they all were in the chest. And sure when himself got well we thought it a sin and a shame to let lovely clothes like these lie by without wearing ’em—to be ruined entirely and feed the moths—after they costing such a sight of money too. So he made me put them on; and a proud man himself was this morning, and a happy, seeing me go out the door so grand and iligant—the best of everything upon me!’ There was something absurd, almost grotesque, in the self-conscious complacent way in which the young woman gazed admiringly down on her lugubrious finery; tripping off exulting and triumphant, her manner in curious contrast with the sore woe associated with those garments—the saddest in which mortal can be clad. MR ASLATT’S WARD. IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER IV.