looking upward with a pleasant smile, expired without a struggle. I
could never clearly remember how I passed the intervening days between
my father's death and burial. I have an indistinct recollection of the
hushed voices and soft footsteps of friends and neighbors, who kindly
came to aid in performing the last offices of love and friendship to the
remains of my departed father. I also remember being led by my almost
heart-broken mother into the darkened room, where lay the lifeless body
of my father, now prepared for the grave; but I have a more vivid
recollection of standing with my mother beside an open grave, and
hearing our pastor, in a solemn voice, utter the words, "Earth to
earth--ashes to ashes--dust to dust." Oh! the falling of that first
earth upon my father's coffin, shall I ever forget the sound? Child as I
was, it seemed to me that my heart would break; but tears, the first I
had shed since my father's death, came to my relief. Those blessed
tears. I may well call them blessed, since the physician afterwards told
my mother that they saved either my reason or my life. Kind friends
besought my mother and me to allow ourselves to be conveyed home and not
await the filling up of the grave. But no. We could not leave the spot
till the last earth was thrown upon the grave, and a mound covered with
grassy sods was to be seen, where a little before was only a mournful
cavity. Then indeed we felt that he was gone, and that we must return to
our desolate home--the home which ever before his presence had filled
with joy and gladness.

I must pass over, with a few words only, the first year of our
bereavement, as even now I shudder to recall the feeling of loneliness
and desolation which took possession of us, when we found ourselves left
alone in the home where everything reminded us so strongly of the
departed one. There was a small apartment adjoining our usual
sitting-room which my father was wont to call his study, and, being fond