My mother gave Mrs. Varick a basket filled with simple comforts she had brought with her; and we were about taking our leave, when the door opened, and a religious-looking man, dressed in black, entered the room, bowed to us, spoke familiarly to Mrs. Varick, and approached the bedside of the dying man. Presently he sank upon his knees, and in language most appropriate to the spiritual hardness and destitution of poor Varick, invoked the Throne of Grace in his behalf. Though the outcries and turmoil around and above were continued, yet I lost no word of this deeply affecting prayer. It touched my heart and heightened the solemnity of the occasion. My own supplications went up in silence to the mercy-seat on behalf of the dying man. I knew that my mother's would be equally fervent; and from the reverential responses of the sobbing wife, it was clear to me that hers were not withheld. She was standing very near to me when the minister rose to his feet. Turning to her, he said in a low voice,-- "Madam, I perceive that you are to have a funeral here very shortly. I am an undertaker, and shall be glad to take charge of furnishing the coffin and whatever else may be needed." He put a card into her hand, and left us. I cannot describe the revulsion of feeling which this uncouth and abrupt transition from spiritual to carnal things occasioned in my mind. The shock was so violent as to dissipate at once the solemn impression which the man's excellent prayer had made. The heart-stricken wife could make no reply, except by tears. It was well that the dying man was unable to catch the mercenary drift of the religious exercises he had heard. That night he died. When we reached there the next morning, several of the low crowd who herded in other apartments of this great tenement-house were already offering to bargain with the widow for her husband's clothes. The thing was so inexpressibly shocking that my mother interposed and compelled them to desist and leave us alone. By degrees we learned more of the actual condition of the family. It appeared that Varick had in better days become a member of a beneficial society which allowed forty dollars to a widow for the funeral expenses of her husband. The harpies of the tenement-house had become acquainted with this circumstance, and while one set was seeking to obtain possession of the dead man's clothes, another was practising every art to steal from the widow the little beneficiary fund with which he was to be buried. Through all her difficulties the poor needle-woman had managed to pay the society's dues, foreseeing what the end would be, and she was now entitled to draw the forty dollars. My mother immediately obtained from her an order for the money, drew it, kept it from the rapacious set who watched for it, and made it an efficient means of immediate comfort.