The ministerial undertaker was of course present at the funeral. He was evidently as keen after business as he was powerful in prayer. When the hour for moving from the house had arrived, he approached the widow and whispered to her that he could not think of letting the coffin leave the premises until some one had become surety for the payment of his bill! My mother and myself both sat near the widow, and heard this extraordinary and ill-timed demand. I was amazed and disgusted at the indecency of the man in not urging it at the proper time, and pressing it at so improper a one. But my mother told him to proceed, and that she would pay the bill. All these enormities were new things to me. I had seen nothing, I had imagined nothing, so every way terrible as came within my notice under the squalid roof of this poor needle-woman. But my mother had long been in the habit of penetrating into the abodes of the sick and destitute; and though shocked by the new combination of religion and trade which she here witnessed, yet she regarded it only as a fresh development of the selfishness and hypocrisy of human nature. This poor woman and her family must live. How, thought I, is she to do so in this season of declining prices of the only work she is able to perform? If she could survive such a crisis so uncomplainingly, and be willing to take to her bosom the helpless foundling left upon her doorstep, what cause was there for me to complain? Sorrows gathered all round her pathway, while only blessings clustered about mine. I learned a lesson of thankfulness that has never been forgotten. If there had been need of such exhibitions of positive distress as teachers of contentment, others were not wanting within my little circle. One of my cousins, a girl of my own age, ambitious to support herself, had been successful in obtaining a situation as saleswoman in a highly fashionable shop, where the most costly goods were sold in large quantities, and to which, of course, the most dashing customers resorted. I always thought her a truly beautiful girl. She was tall and eminently graceful, her face expressing the virtue and intelligence of her mind: for I cannot understand that true beauty can exist without these corresponding mental harmonies, any more than a shadow without the substance.