recognition. Such a sight is a startling shock to that unconscious
habitual materialism with which we are apt familiarly to regard those we
love; for in thus missing the mind, the heart, the affection that sprang
to ours, we are suddenly made aware that it was the something within the
form, and not the form itself, that was so dear to us. The form itself
is still, perhaps, little altered; but that lip which smiles no welcome,
that eye which wanders over us as strangers, that ear which
distinguishes no more our voices,--the friend we sought is not there!
Even our own love is chilled back; grows a kind of vague, superstitious
terror. Yes, it was not the matter, still present to us, which had
conciliated all those subtle, nameless sentiments which are classed and
fused in the word "affection;" it was the airy, intangible, electric
something, the absence of which now appals us.

I stood speechless; my father crept on, and took the hand that returned
no pressure. The child only did not seem to share our emotions, but,
clambering on the bed, laid her cheek on the breast, and was still.

"Pisistratus," whispered my father at last, and I stole near, hushing my
breath,--"Pisistratus, if your mother were here!"

I nodded; the same thought had struck us both. His deep wisdom, my
active youth, both felt their nothingness then and there. In the sick
chamber both turned helplessly to miss the woman.

So I stole out, descended the stairs, and stood in the open air in a
sort of stunned amaze. Then the tramp of feet, and the roll of wheels,
and the great London roar, revived me. That contagion of practical life
which lulls the heart and stimulates the brain,--what an intellectual
mystery there is in its common atmosphere! In another moment I had