"_Will you see the body?_" said the superintendent. We all have a natural repugnance to death, but in addition to this repugnance I remember the face of a friend with such distinctness that it is painful for me to impress on the living picture in my memory the marred and broken image of the dead. I therefore seldom join in the usual custom of viewing the corpse at funerals--never, if I can avoid it without giving pain to those who do not understand my motives. It consequently was with more than usual reluctance that I discharged this duty of ascertaining that no terrible mistake had occurred among the number coming and going, and dying in the hospital. We went down-stairs to the basement. Hitherto my experience with death had been only that of funerals, in the calm and quiet of peaceful life, where all that is most painful is softened or hidden, and death made to take the semblance of sleep. I can hardly say that I expected to see, as usual, the solitary coffin and its slumbering tenant, yet I certainly anticipated nothing different. "This is the dead-room," said the superintendent, as he unlocked and threw open a door. The name was the first intimation of something different. It was a narrow, gloomy room, and on the stone pavement, lay four white figures. They were decently attired in the hospital shroud, but the accustomed concealments of the undertaker's art were wanting. The staring eyes, the open mouth, the contracted face left little of the usual sleep-like repose of death. It was a ghastly sight. I felt like shrinking back to the outer air, but had to enter the room. The superintendent did not know Frank, so I was obliged to look at each. I glanced at the first. He was a young man with fair hair, and what had been bright blue eyes. They seemed to return my look so consciously that for a moment I could not avert my gaze. The look seemed to say, "You do not know me: we are strangers who have never met before, will never meet again." I glanced at the second, at the third. All were strangers, and all were young. The fourth I recognized. The room was so narrow that the figures reached from wall to wall, and as we went forward we had to step over each prostrate form. The corporal followed me, and looked long and earnestly at his friend. There had been no mistake. As we went out my eyes involuntarily turned to the others. It was probably the only look of pity they received. "Did they die during the night?" I inquired. "Yes!" "And has no officer or friend been with them?" "No!" "When will they be buried?" "In the afternoon." This, I fear, was all their funeral service. "Did they anticipate such a death and such a burial when they came from distant pleasant homes to serve in the great army?" I asked myself. And as I looked on them, thus neglected and deserted, I thought of the families and friends who would give much to stand as I stood beside them, to weep over their coffins, and to go with them to the grave.