"And what shall be the token?" asked the proud girl, as if her heart
acknowledged a meaning in these wild words.

"This lock of hair," said Edith, lifting one of the dark, clustering
curls, that lay heavily on the dead man's brow.

The two maidens joined their hands over the bosom of the corpse, and
appointed a day and hour, far, far in time to come, for their next
meeting in that chamber. The statelier girl gave one deep look at the
motionless countenance, and departed,--yet turned again and trembled,
ere she closed the door, almost believing that her dead lover frowned
upon her. And Edith, too! Was not her white form fading into the
moonlight? Scorning her own weakness, she went forth, and perceived
that a negro slave was waiting in the passage, with a wax light, which
he held between her face and his own, and regarded her, as she
thought, with an ugly expression of merriment. Lifting his torch on
high, the slave lighted her down the staircase, and undid the portal
of the mansion. The young clergyman of the town had just ascended the
steps, and bowing to the lady, passed in without a word.


Years, many years rolled on; the world seemed new again, so much older
was it grown, since the night when those pale girls had clasped their
hands across the bosom of the corpse. In the interval, a lonely woman
had passed from youth to extreme age, and was known by all the town,
as the "Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet." A taint of insanity had
affected her whole life, but so quiet, sad, and gentle, so utterly
free from violence, that she was suffered to pursue her harmless
fantasies, unmolested by the world, with whose business or pleasures
she had naught to do. She dwelt alone, and never came into the