What! thought I, is so much love no longer attached but to a little dust already mingled with the earth; do these sighs all tend to no good? William is gone, in the flower of his youth, and with him his strong affections, and his heart where all was still in bloom; she loved him but a year, one little year, and all is told. There is naught above us but the air—love, that feeling so deep within us, is but a flame placed in the dark prison of our body, where it shines and burns, but dies away when the frail wall around it crumbles! A little dust is all that remains of our loves, our hopes and thoughts and passions, of all that breathes and moves and elevates within us! And there was a long silence in my breast. In truth, I had ceased to think. I was as one stupefied, between that which I no longer denied nor yet believed. At last, on a beautiful starlight evening, when Eva clasped her hands in prayer, I could not account for it, but my hands too closed, and my lips opened to breathe a prayer. Then, through a happy chance, for the first time, did Eva Meredith see what was passing around her, as if a secret instinct had warned her that my soul was united in harmony with her own. “Thanks,” said she, extending her hand to me, “remember him, and pray for him sometimes.” “Oh! madame,” I cried, “may we all find a better world, whether our lives be long or short, happy, or sorely tried.” “The immortal soul of William is on high,” she said, in a grave tone; and her gaze, at once sad and bright, was again fixed on heaven. Since that day, in accomplishing the duties of my profession, I have often seen men die, but to them who survived, I have ever spoken consoling words of a better life—and those words I truly felt.