“It was a gay time now, for I was dandled up and down and made a great deal of. Everybody said, what a beautiful baby! and what a pretty frock! But sorrow soon followed. The lovely infant died; it was laid in its coffin, and I was its burial dress! The corpse was borne to the church with a long retinue of priests, holding torches in their hands. When they came to the church, they sung a solemn dirge, and the dim arches of the holy edifice seemed to echo back the sad and wailing tones. The coffin was deposited in its vault――the music ceased――the throng dispersed, and a fearful stillness reigned around. I could see and feel, even amid the darkness of my prison house, how sweet was the placid face of that lovely babe――smiling in its lonely, desolate grave! I clung to its bosom, and was happy, even though I had no other hope than to perish, and moulder, and be forgotten. “A day passed, and midnight came. A fearful stillness rested upon the church and all around――save that, perchance, the wings of the bats might be heard, fanning the dark recesses of the cathedral; or the drops of moisture that fell upon the lids of the coffins, at long intervals, from the arches of the tombs, caught the listening ear of silence. But at last the stillness was disturbed; a light, sliding step was heard upon the marble floor of the church; the door of the tomb where I lay was opened, the lid of the coffin was lifted, and the rays of a dark lantern were turned upon the corpse of the babe. I could see that it was the sexton who thus invaded the sanctuary of the dead. He first took a diamond from the bosom of the infant, and then, disrobing the body, carried me away. I was borne to his house, where his wife soon took the frock to pieces, and the long skirt was now but a simple piece of muslin. It was carefully ironed and sold to a pawnbroker. “I was soon purchased by a negro girl, a slave, black and glittering as anthracite, who carried me home and made me into a wedding turban. Three days after I had been sleeping as a shroud in the crypt of the church of St. Nicholas, I was the head-dress of a bride, named ‘Phillipina Squash!’” [To be continued.] The Pyramids of Egypt. These gigantic monuments, erected before the period at which authentic history begins, have ever excited the curiosity and wonder of mankind. Their vast antiquity, their amazing magnitude, the mystery which hangs over their origin and design, contribute to render them objects of intense interest.