cold, hunger, and want. The mysterious hand of Providence conducted them
from comparative comfort, if not luxury, through several stages of
trial, danger, and trouble, till they were now entirely stripped, like
Job, of all but an existence to which death was preferable. Many are the
phases of misery and crosses with which the life of man is surrounded in
this vale of tears; but we think the condition of the orphan, deprived
of both parents, and thrown for support or existence on a strange and
selfish world, the most desolate of all. A policeman was the first who
was attracted to the house of mourning by the wailing and cries of those
whom this night saw alone and desolate. Mrs. Doherty, attended by an
Irish servant maid from a neighboring house, were the next visitors;
and, after piously kneeling around the corpse to offer their fervent
prayers for the soul, they prepared to "lay out" the body. This
consists, as all are probably aware, of washing the corpse, clothing it
in clean linen, extending it on a table or bed, and putting up such
temporary fixtures as would deprive the room in which it lies of the
gloom and repulsiveness attendant on such an event. After arranging all
things so that she looked "a decent corpse," with the _religious habit_
around her, Mrs. Doherty hung up the crucifix, pinned to a white linen
sheet at the head of where she lay, placed her "Ursuline Manual" on her
breast, and her beads on her arms, crossed on the body.

"She was a handsome, fine woman, in her day, God bless her," said Mrs.
Doherty.

"Yes, any body can tell that," answered Norry. "I wonder how they came
here at all."

"I know it well," answered old Peggy Doherty. "She telled me all about
it afore she took bad entirely. Her man was well off, and had a brother