One of the saddest sights on a New England byway is a dead church, with its broken tower and silent bell, in some neighborhood where the “boys” have nearly all gone to the cities and the West. The coach rolled by such a one, with its briery graveyard and broken wall. The old man saw it, and his memory of boyhood legends revived again. “Susan—Susan—Parson White preached his last sermon there. It is boarded up now. See the old bell that used to make the hills echo! Parson White had gone eighty then; almost ninety he must have been. “It was a Sunday morning in balm-breathing June, with the wild roses blooming, and the orioles singing, and the bobolinks toppling in the clover. The windows were open, and the shadows of the elms fell across them. The communion-table was spread in front of the tall pulpit, which was hung with silk curtains under the sounding-board. Parson White, he went up the pulpit stairs and began to pray. The old folks used to say that they never heard such a prayer as that. He seemed to be looking into heaven. Suddenly he stopped. There was a long silence. The church was so still you might have heard the chippering of the wrens in the old trees. He said then: ‘The horsemen of Israel, and the chariots thereof,’ Then he was silent again, and then he seemed talking to himself, and said, in a low voice:— “‘My willing soul would stay In such a frame as this, And sit and sing herself away To everlasting bliss.’ He did not move again. Never. He lay there on the pulpit, his face encircled in the arms of his long black robe, and resting on the Bible. The deacons went up to him softly. He was dead.” The old man dropped his head in silence for a time. The coach rolled on its dusty way over the red and russet leaves that were falling in the sun. Little Susan was dreaming too,—of old Susan and haunted rooms and the fairy-like day of Thanksgiving. “Susan—Susan—we are near the old farm,” said the old man, starting. “There’s the gable just over the savin-trees,—there, with the woodbine on it, where the martin-boxes used to be. Many’s the time I’ve looked out of that window. I was young then, Susan; we do not live twice in this world.” A strange sound fell on the Western girl’s ears. “Going! going! How much am I offered for the old family cradle? Fifty cents? Fifty cents am I offered for the old family cradle? Fifty cents for this old oak cradle? One generation has slept in it, and it is good for another. Fifty cents am I offered?” The old man listened a moment, then thrust his head out of the coach-door, and said to the driver: “Hurry up! I want to bid on _that cradle_.”