And then Mr. Tufton got up, swaying heavily with his large uncertain old figure over the table. The old minister sawed the air with his white fat hand after he had said "My beloved brethren" twice over; and little Mrs. Tufton, sitting below in her impatience and anxiety lest he should not acquit himself well, dropt her handkerchief and disappeared after it, while Mrs. Vincent erected herself under the shadow of her veil. Mr. Tufton did his young brother no good. He was so sympathetic over the misfortunes that had befallen Vincent's family, that bitter tears came to the widow's eyes, and her hands once more tightened in a silent strain of self-support. While the old minister impressed upon his audience the duty of bearing with his dear young brother, and being indulgent to the faults of his youth, it was all the poor mother could do to keep silent, to stifle down the indignant sob in her heart, and keep steady in her seat. Perhaps it was some breath of anguish escaping from her unawares that drew towards her the restless gleaming eyes of another strange spectator there. That restless ghost of a woman!--all shrunken, gleaming, ghastly--her eyes looking all about in an obliquity of furtive glances, fearing yet daring everything. When she found Mrs. Vincent out, she fixed her suspicious desperate gaze upon the crape veil which hid the widow's face. The deacons of Salem were to Mrs. Hilyard but so many wretched masquers playing a rude game among the dreadful wastes of life, of which these poor fools were ignorant. Sometimes she watched them with a reflection of her old amusement--oftener, pursued by her own tyrannical fancy and the wild restlessness which had brought her here, forgot altogether where she was. But Mrs. Vincent's sigh, which breathed unutterable things--the steady fixed composure of that little figure while the old minister maundered on with his condolences, his regrets, his self-glorification over the interest he had taken in his dear young brother, and the advice he had given him--could not miss the universal scrutiny of this strange woman's eyes. She divined, with a sudden awakening of the keen intelligence which was half crazed by this time, yet vivid as ever, the state of mind in which the widow was. With a half-audible cry the Back Grove Street needlewoman gazed at the minister's mother; in poignant trouble, anxiety, indignant distress--clasping her tender hands together yet again to control the impatience, the resentment, the aching mortification and injury with which she heard all this maudlin pity overflowing the name of her boy--yet, ah! what a world apart from the guilty and desperate spirit which sat there gazing like Dives at Lazarus. Mrs. Hilyard slid out of her seat with a rapid stealthy movement, and placed herself unseen by the widow's side. The miserable woman put forth her furtive hand and took hold of the black gown--the old black silk gown, so well worn and long preserved. Mrs.