I do not know--I can not know till the veil which hides her world from ours, is lifted from my eyes, but there have been times--many times--since she said that, when Kate and I have thought she was KEEPING HER WORD! For a half-hour she lay without speaking, still holding our hands in hers. Then, in a low tone--so low that I had to bend down to hear--she said: 'Oh! is it not beautiful! Don't you hear? And look! oh! look! And my mother, too! Oh! it is too bright for such as I!' The heavenly gates had opened to her! She had caught a vision of the better land! In a moment she said: 'Farewell my friend--my child--I will come----' Then a low sound rattled in her throat, and she passed away, just as the last rays of the winter sun streamed through the low window. One of its bright beams rested on her face, and lingered there till we laid her away forever. And now, as I sit with Kate on this grassy mound, this mild summer afternoon, and write these lines, we talk together of her short, sad life, of her calm, peaceful death, and floating down through the long years, comes to us the blessing of her pure, redeemed spirit, pleasant as the breath of the flowers that are growing on her grave. We look up, and, through our thick falling tears, read again the words which we placed over her in the long ago: FRANCES MANDELL: Aged 23. SHE SUFFERED AND SHE DIED. WEEP FOR HER. TAKE CARE! When the blades of shears are biting, Finger not their edges keen; When man and wife are fighting, He faces ill who comes between. JOHN BULL, in our grief delighting, Take care how you intervene! SHOULDER-STRAPS; OR, MEN, MANNERS, AND MOTIVES IN 1862. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY AND EPISODICAL--MEASURING-WORMS, DUSSELDORF PICTURES, AND PARISIAN FORTUNE-TELLERS. This is going to be an odd jumble.