God forgive you! for _your_ feet, too, must shrink appalled from death’s cold river--your faltering tongue ask, “Can this be death?”--your fading eye linger lovingly on the sunny earth--your clammy hand yield its last faint pressure--your sinking pulse give its last feeble flutter. Oh, rapacious grave; yet another victim for thy voiceless keeping! What! no word or greeting from all thy household sleepers? No warm welcome from a sister’s loving lips? No throb of pleasure from the dear maternal bosom? _Silent all!_ Oh, if these broken links were _never_ gathered up! If beyond Death’s swelling flood there were _no_ eternal shore! If for the struggling bark there were no port of peace! If athwart that lowering cloud sprang no bright bow of promise! Alas for Love, if _this_ be all, And _naught beyond_--oh earth! MRS. ADOLPHUS SMITH SPORTING THE “BLUE STOCKING.” [Illustration: “Don’t be disagreeable, Smith, I’m just getting inspired!”] Well, I think I’ll finish that story for the editor of the “Dutchman.” Let me see; where did I leave off? The setting sun was just gilding with his last ray--“Ma, I want some bread and molassess”--(yes, dear,) gilding with his last ray the church spire--“Wife, where’s my Sunday pants?” (_Under the bed, dear_,) the church spire of Inverness, when a--“There’s nothing under the bed, dear, but your lace cap”--(Perhaps they are in the coal hod in the closet,) when a horseman was seen approaching--“Ma’am, the _pertators_ is out; not one for dinner”--(Take some turnips,) approaching, covered with dust, and--“Wife! the baby has swallowed a button”--(_Reverse him_, dear--take him by the heels,) and waving in his hand a banner, on which was written--“Ma! I’ve torn my pantaloons”--liberty or death! The inhabitants rushed _en masse_--“Wife! WILL you leave off scribbling?” (Don’t be disagreeable, Smith, I’m just getting inspired,) to the public square, where De Begnis, who had been secretly--“Butcher wants to see you, ma’am”--secretly informed of the traitors’--“Forgot _which_ you said, ma’am, sausages or mutton chop”--movements, gave orders to fire; not less than twenty----“My gracious! Smith, you haven’t been _reversing_ that child all this time; he’s as black as your coat; and that boy of YOURS has torn up the first sheet of my manuscript. There! it’s no use for a married woman to cultivate her intellect.----Smith, hand me those twins.” CECILE VRAY. “Died, in ----, Cecile, wife of Mortimer Vray, artist. This lady died in great destitution, among strangers, and was frequently heard to say, ‘I wish I were dead!’” A brief paragraph, to chronicle a broken heart! Poor Cecile! We little thought of this, when conning our French tasks, your long raven ringlets twining lovingly with mine; or, when released from school drudgery, we sauntered through the fragrant woods, weaving rosy dreams of a bright future, which neither you nor I were to see.