It is a sad tale, and rarely perhaps has any such tragedy darkened the page of domestic history in England. A whole family were swept away, and most of those connected with them, in a very short space of time; but it is not the number of deaths within that period that gives its gloominess to the page--for every domestic history is little but a record of deaths--but the circumstances. Youth, beauty, virtue, gentleness, kindness, honor, integrity, punctilious rectitude: reason, energy, wisdom, sometimes, nay often, have no effect as a screen from misfortune, sorrow, and death. Were this world all, what a frightful chaos would human life be. But the very sorrows and adversities of the good, prove that there is a life beyond, where all will be made even. THE END. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man in Black, by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James