and external; no more than the sable robes voluminously shrouding a
certain divine reality, and thus indicating what might otherwise be
altogether invisible to mortal eye.

"Just now," remarked the trembling old woman, "I seemed to see
beyond the outside. And then my everlasting tremor passed away!"

"Would that I could dwell always in these momentary gleams of
light!" said the man of stricken conscience. "Then the blood-stain
in my heart would be washed clean away."

This strain of conversation appeared so unintelligibly absurd to
good Mr. Smith, that he burst into precisely the fit of laughter
which his physicians had warned him against, as likely to prove
instantaneously fatal. In effect, he fell back in his chair a
corpse, with a broad grin upon his face, while his ghost, perchance,
remained beside it bewildered at its unpremeditated exit. This
catastrophe of course broke up the festival.

"How is this? You do not tremble!" observed the tremulous old woman
to Gervayse Hastings, who was gazing at the dead man with singular
intentness. "Is it not awful to see him so suddenly vanish out of
the midst of life,--this man of flesh and blood, whose earthly
nature was so warm and strong? There is a never-ending tremor in my
soul, but it trembles afresh at, this! And you are calm!"

"Would that he could teach me somewhat!" said Gervayse Hastings,
drawing a long breath. "Men pass before me like shadows on the
wall; their actions, passions, feelings, are flickerings of the
light, and then they vanish! Neither the corpse, nor yonder