be as magnificent as Mr. Wigglesworth's skill could make it. There
was something very characteristic in this contrivance to have his
money's worth even from his own tombstone, which, indeed, afforded him
more enjoyment in the few months that he lived thereafter, than it
probably will in a whole century, now that it is laid over his bones.
This incident reminds me of a young girl, a pale, slender, feeble
creature, most unlike the other rosy and healthful damsels of the
Vineyard, amid whose brightness she was fading away. Day after day
did the poor maiden come to the sculptor's shop, and pass from one
piece of marble to another, till at last she pencilled her name upon a
slender slab, which, I think, was of a more spotless white than all
the rest. I saw her no more, but soon afterwards found Mr.
Wigglesworth cutting her virgin name into the stone which she had
chosen.

"She is dead,--poor girl," said he, interrupting the tune which he was
whistling, "and she chose a good piece of stuff for her headstone.
Now which of these slabs would you like best to see your own name
upon?"

"Why, to tell you the truth, my good Mr. Wigglesworth," replied I,
after a moment's pause,--for the abruptness of the question had
somewhat startled me,--"to be quite sincere with you, I care little or
nothing about a stone for my own grave, and am somewhat inclined to
scepticism as to the propriety of erecting monuments at all, over the
dust that once was human. The weight of these heavy marbles, though
unfelt by the dead corpse of the enfranchised soul, presses drearily
upon the spirit of the survivor, and causes him to connect the idea of
death with the dungeon-like imprisonment of the tomb, instead of with
the freedom of the skies. Every gravestone that you ever made is the