Taking the child by the hand,--her little effervescence of infantile fun
having passed into a downcast humor, though not well knowing as yet what a
dusky cloud of disheartening fancies arose from these green hillocks,--he
went heavily toward the garden-gate. Close to its threshold, so that one
who was issuing forth or entering must needs step upon it or over it, lay
a small flat stone, deeply imbedded in the ground, and partly covered with
grass, inscribed with the name of "Dr. John Swinnerton, Physician."

"Ay," said the old man, as the well-remembered figure of his ancient
instructor seemed to rise before him in his grave-apparel, with beard and
gold-headed cane, black velvet doublet and cloak, "here lies a man who, as
people have thought, had it in his power to avoid the grave! He had no
little grandchild to tease him. He had the choice to die, and chose it."

So the old gentleman led Pansie over the stone, and carefully closed the
gate; and, as it happened, he forgot the uprooted shrub, which Pansie, as
she ran, had flung away, and which had fallen into the open grave; and
when the funeral came that afternoon, the coffin was let down upon it, so
that its bright, inauspicious flower never bloomed again.




ANOTHER FRAGMENT OF THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE.


"Be secret!" and he kept his stern eye fixed upon him, as the coach began
to move.

"Be secret!" repeated the apothecary. "I know not any secret that he has