To give certainty to this hope, she cast her eye towards the house opposite to which she now stood. Her heart drooped on perceiving proofs that the dwelling was still inhabited. The door was open, and the windows in the second and third story were raised. Near the entrance, in the street, stood a cart. The horse attached to it, in its form and furniture and attitude, was an emblem of torpor and decay. His gaunt sides, motionless limbs, his gummy and dead eyes, and his head hanging to the ground, were in unison with the craziness of the vehicle to which he belonged, and the paltry and bedusted harness which covered him. No attendant nor any human face was visible. The stillness, though at an hour customarily busy, was uninterrupted except by the sound of wheels moving at an almost indistinguishable distance. She paused for a moment to contemplate this unwonted spectacle. Her trepidations were mingled with emotions not unakin to sublimity, but the consciousness of danger speedily prevailed, and she hastened to acquit herself of her engagement. She approached the door for this purpose, but before she could draw the bell, her motions were arrested by sounds from within. The staircase was opposite the door. Two persons were now discovered descending the stairs. They lifted between them a heavy mass, which was presently discerned to be a coffin. Shocked by this discovery, and trembling, she withdrew from the entrance. At this moment a door on the opposite side of the street opened, and a female came out. Constantia approached her involuntarily, and her appearance not being unattractive, ventured more by gestures than by words, to inquire whose obsequies were thus unceremoniously conducted. The woman informed her that the dead was Matthews, who, two days before was walking about, indifferent to and braving danger. She cut short the narrative which her companion seemed willing to prolong, and to embellish with all its circumstances, and hastened home with her utmost expedition. The mind of Constantia was a stranger to pusillanimity. Death, as the common lot of all, was regarded by her without perturbation. The value of life, though no annihilated, was certainly diminished by adversity. With whatever solemnity contemplated, it excited on her own account no aversion or inquietude. For her father's sake only death was an evil to be ardently deprecated. The nature of the prevalent disease, the limits and modes of its influence, the risk that is incurred by approaching the sick or the dead, or by breathing the surrounding element, were subjects foreign to her education. She judged like the mass of mankind from the most obvious appearances, and was subject like them to impulses which disdained the control of her reason. With all her complacency for death, and speculative resignation to the fate that governs the world, disquiet and alarm pervaded her bosom on this occasion.