purpose almost as unwelcome, to exhibit their wrinkles and
infirmity, and claim her as their companion by the tokens of her
own decay. Many a merry night had she danced with them, in youth.
And now, in joyless age, she felt that some withered partner
should request her hand, and all unite, in a dance of death, to
the music of the funeral bell.

While these aged mourners were passing up the aisle, it was
observed that, from pew to pew, the spectators shuddered with
irrepressible awe, as some object, hitherto concealed by the
intervening figures, came full in sight. Many turned away their
faces; others kept a fixed and rigid stare; and a young girl
giggled hysterically, and fainted with the laughter on her lips.
When the spectral procession approached the altar, each couple
separated, and slowly diverged, till, in the centre, appeared a
form, that had been worthily ushered in with all this gloomy
pomp, the death knell, and the funeral. It was the bridegroom in
his shroud!

No garb but that of the grave could have befitted such a
deathlike aspect; the eyes, indeed, had the wild gleam of a
sepulchral lamp; all else was fixed in the stern calmness which
old men wear in the coffin. The corpse stood motionless, but
addressed the widow in accents that seemed to melt into the clang
of the bell, which fell heavily on the air while he spoke.

"Come, my bride!" said those pale lips, "the hearse is ready. The
sexton stands waiting for us at the door of the tomb. Let us be
married; and then to our coffins!"