echoes of the first have died away over the distant woods. That sound is the summons of the grave. Some neighbouring peasant is borne to-night to his long home, and see, as we turn this angle of the church, there beside that broad old maple, is a fresh-opened grave. The dark cavity is covered in by two boards laid loosely over, but it will not be long untenanted. Let us look abroad for the approaching funeral, for by the tolling of the bell, it must be already within sight. It comes not up that shady lane-no, nor by the broad heath road, from the further hamlet-nor from the direction of the Grange Farm-but there-ah!—there it is, and close at hand, emerging from that little shrubby hollow, through which the road dips to the near village of Down. Is it not a beautiful thing to gaze on, in this lovely secluded spot, by the light of that yellow sunset, the mellow hue of which falls with such a rich yet tempered brightness on the white draperies of those foremost in the procession?

It is a maiden's funeral, that proba bly, of some young person; for see, the pall is borne by six girls, each shrouded like a nun in her long white flowing hood, and in lieu of the black pall, a white sheet is flung over the coffin. The lower classes are very tenacious of those distinctive observances, and many a young creature I have known, whose delight it seemed, during the last stages of some lingering malady, to arrange everything for her own burial. The fashion of her shroud, and the flowers they should strew over her in the coffin-the friends who should follow her to the grave, and the six of her young companions to be selected for her pall-bearers. Almost the very poorest contrive, on such occasions, what they call "a creditable burying"-even to the coarse refreshments distributed among the funeral guests. Poor souls!-long and sorely do they pinch for it, in their own few comforts, and in their scanty meals but the self-inflicted privation is unrepiningly endured, and who would take upon him, if it were possible, to restrain that holy and natural impulse, to honour the memory of the dead? See!

the train lengthens into sight as it winds up the ascent from that wild dingle. The bearers and their insensible burthen are already near, and there follow the female mourners foremost. Ah! I know now for whom that bell tolls-for whom that grave is prepared-whose remains are there borne along to their last resting-place. Close behind the coffin comes a solitary mourner-solitary in her grief, and yet she bears in her arms a helpless innocent, whose loss is even more deplorable than hers. That poor old woman is the widowed mother of Rachel Maythorne, whose corpse she is following to the grave, and that unconscious baby who stretches out its little hands with laughing glee towards the white drapery of the coffin, is the desolate orphan of her only child— Alas! of its unwedded mother.-A dark and foul offence lies at his door, who seduced that simple creature from the paths of innocence! A few words will tell her story, but let us stop till the funeral train has passed on into the church, from which the minister now advances to meet it.—That poor childless mother! with what rapid strides have age and infirmities overtaken her, since we saw her this time twelvemonth, holding open that very gate for the farmer's prosperous family, and following them into church with contented humility, accompanied by her duteous Rachel. Then, she was still a comely matron, looking cheerful in her poverty, and strong to labour. Now, how bent down with age and feebleness does that poor frame appear! The burthen of the little infant is one she can ill sustain, but to whom would she resign the precious charge? She has contrived a black frock for the little creature-probably from her own old gown-her widow's gown, for she herself has on no mourning garment, only an old rusty black willow bonnet, with a little crape about it of still browner hue, and a large black cotton shawl, with which she has covered over, as nearly as possible, that dark linen gown. She holds up no handkerchief to her eyes, with the idle pa rade of ceremonial woe, but her face is bent down over the baby's bosom,

and drops are glistening there, and on its soft cheek, that never fell from those young joyous eyes.

A few neighbours follow her-a few poor women two and two, who have all contrived to make some show of decent mourning, and those three or four labouring men, who walk last, have each a crape hat-band, that has served for many funerals. They are all gone by now-the dead and the living. For the last time on earth, the departed mortal has entered the House of God. While that part of the burial-service appointed to be read there is proceeding, a few words will tell her story.

Rachel Maythorne was the only child of her mother, and she was a widow, left early to struggle with extreme poverty, and with the burthen of a sickly infant, afflicted with epileptic fits, almost from its birth. The neighbours, many of them, said, "it would be a mercy, if so be God Almighty were pleased to take away the poor baby; she would never thrive, or live to be a woman, and was a terrible hindrance to the industrious mother." But she thought not so, neither would she have exchanged her puny wailing infant, for the healthiest and the loveliest in the land-she thought it the loveliest, ay, and the most intelligent too, though everybody else saw well enough that it was more backward in every thing, than almost any child of the same age. But it did weather out the precarious season of infancy, and it did live to be a woman, and even to enjoy a moderate share of health, though the fits were never wholly subdued, and they undoubtedly had weakened and impaired, though not destroyed her intellect. Most people at first sight would have called Rachel a very plain girl, and she was, in truth, far from pretty, slight and thin in her person, and from the feebleness of her frame, stooping almost like a woman in years. Her complexion, which might have been fair and delicate, had she been a lady, and luxuriously reared up, was naturally pallid, and, exposure to sun and wind in her outdoor labours, had thickened it to a dark and muddy hue; but there was

a meek and tender expression in her mid hazel eyes, and in her dimpled smile, and in the tone of her low quiet voice, even in the slight hesitation which impeded her utterance, that never failed to excite interest, when once they had attracted observation. The mother and daughter lived a life of contented poverty-the former, strong and healthful, found frequent employment as a char-woman, or in going out to wash, or in field-labour. The latter, brought up almost delicately, though the child of indigence, and still occasionally subject to distressing fits, was principally occupied at home, in the care of their cow, the management of the little dairy, in the cultivation of their small patch of garden, (and small though it was, Rachel had her flower-knot in a sunny corner,) and in knitting and coarse needlework. In summer, however, she shared her mother's task in the hay-field, in mushroom-picking, and in the pleasant labour of the gleaners; and how sweet was the frugal meal of that contented pair, when the burthen of the day was over, and they sat just within the open door of their little cottage, over which a luxuriant jessamine had wreathed itself into a natural porch!

If Nature had been niggardly in storing the simple head of poor Rachel, she had been but too prodigal of feeling, to a heart which overflowed with the milk of human kindness, whose capacity of loving seemed boundless, embracing within its scope every created thing that breathed the breath of life. We hear fine ladies and sentimental misses making a prodigious fuss about sensibility, and barbarity, and "the poor beetle that we tread upon;" but I do firmly believe simple Rachel, without even thinking of her feelings, much less saying a word about them, would have gone many steps out of her way, rather than se her foot upon a worm. It was a sore trouble to her, her annual misery when Daisey's calf, that she had petted so fondly, was consigned to the butcher's cart, and while the poor mother lowed disconsolately about in quest of her lost little one, there was

load, by the time they reached the little common, lights were twinkling in all its skirting cottages, and the returned gleaners were gathered round their frugal supper boards, and the Widow Maythorne was standing in her jasmine porch, looking out for her long absent Rachel, and wondering that she lingered so late, till the sight of her heavy burthen, as she emerged from the dark copse, accounted for her lagging footsteps and tardy return. Her companion never walked with her farther than the copse, and he exacted a promise Alas! and it was given and kept, though the poor thing comprehended not why she might not make her dear mother partaker of her happy hopes; but it was his wish, so she promised all he exacted, and too faithfully kept silence. So time passed on. The bright broad harvest moon dwindled away to a pale crescent, and retired into the starry depths of heaven, and then, again emerging from her unseen paths, she hung out her golden lamp, to light the hunter's month. Then came the dark days and clouded nights of November, and the candle was lit early in the widow's cottage, and the mother and daughter resumed their winter tasks of the spinning wheel and the knitting needles. And the widow's heart was cheery, for the meal-chest was full, and the potatoe-patch had yielded abundantly, and there stood a goodly peat-stack by the door; and, through the blessing of Providence on their careful industry, they should be fed and warmed all the long winter months: so there was gladness in the widow's heart. But Rachel drooped; at first unobserved by the fond parent, for the girl was ever gentle and quiet, and withal not given to much talking or to noisy merriment; but then she would sit and sing to herself like a bird, over her work, and she was ever ready with a smiling look and a cheerful answer, when her moth er spoke to or asked a question of her. Now she was silent, but unquiet, and would start as if from sleep when spoken to, and fifty times in an hour lay by her work hastily, and walk to the door, or the window, or the little cupboard, as if for some special pur

pose, which yet seemed ever to slip away unaccomplished from her bewildered mind; and sometimes she would wander away from her home for an hour or more together, and from those lonely rambles she was sure to return with looks of deeper dejection, and eyes still heavy with the traces of recent tears. The mother's observation once aroused, her tender anxiety soon fathomed the cruel secret. Alas! unhappy mother-thou hadst this only treasure-this one poor lamb-who drank of thy cup, and lay in thy bosom, and was to thee a loving and a dutiful child; and the spoiler came, and broke down thy little fence of earthly comfort, and laid waste the peaceful fold of nature's sweetest charities.

The rustic libertine, whose ruthless sport, the amusement of a vacant hour, had been the seduction of poor Rachel, soon wearied of his easy conquest, and cast her "like a loathsome weed away." He found it not at first an easy task to convince her of his own baseness, and intended desertion of her; but when at last he roughly insisted on the discontinuance of her importunate claims, and the simple mind of his poor victim once fully comprehended his inhuman will, she would have obeyed it in upbraiding silence; but alas! her injuries were not to be concealed, and it was the hard task of the afflicted mother to appeal for such miserable compensation as the parish could enforce, to support her unhappy child in the hour of trial, and to assist in maintaining the fatherless little one. Three months ago it was born into this hard, bleak world, and though the child of shame, and poverty, and abandonment, never was the heir of a mighty dukedom more fondly welcomed, more doatingly gazed on, more tenderly nursed, than that poor baby: and it was a lovely infant. How many a rich and childless pair would have yielded up even to the half of all their substance, to be the parents of such a goodly creature! All the sorrows of the for. saken mother, all her rejected affec tions, all her intense capabilities of loving, became so absorbed and con.

centrated in her maternal feelings, that when she looked upon her child, and hugged it to her bosom, and drank in at her eyes the sweetness of its innocent smiles, it would have been difficult, perhaps, to have kept alive in her poor simple mind a repentant sorrow for her past fault, as associated with the existence of that guiltless creature. No one judged hardly of poor Rachel, though many a muttered curse, "not loud, but deep," was imprecated on her heartless seducer. She was still a welcome guest in every cottage-she who had ever been so ready with all her little services to every soul who needed them, was now welcome to sit with her infant in the low nursing-chair beside their humble hearths, or to lay it in the same cradle with their own little ones, while she busied herself at her task of needlework. It was a great comfort to the anxious mother to know, that, while she was absent from her cottage, her daughter had many a friend, and many a home, to which she might resort when her own was lonely, or when the peculiar symptoms, with which she was familiar, warned her of an approaching fit. On such occasions, (and she had generally sufficient notice,) experience had taught her, that by flinging herself flat down on her face, either on the bed or floor, the attack was greatly mitigated in violence, and sometimes wholly averted; and it had been hitherto an especial mercy, that the afflictive malady had never made its terrific approaches in the night season. Therefore it was, that the Widow Maythorne now and then ventured to sleep from home, when engaged in one of her various occupations, nurse-tending. So engaged, she left her cottage one evening of last week, and, not expecting to return to it before the afternoon of the ensuing day, she made it her provident request to a neighbour, that, if Rachel did not look in on her early in the morning, she would step across and see how it fared with her and her baby. Morning came, and the good woman was stirring early, and soon every cottage lattice was flung open, and every door unclosed, and the blue

smoke curled up from every chimney but that of the Widow Maythome's dwelling. There, door and window continued fast, and the little muslin curtain was undrawn from within the chamber-window. So the friendly neighbour, mindful of her promise, stepped across to the silent cottage, and it was not without an apprehensive feeling, that she lifted up the latch, of the garden-wicket, before which stood the old cow, waiting to be disburthened of her milky treasure, and lowing out, at intervals her uneasy impatience at the unusual tardiness of her kind mistress. Fast was the door, and fast the chamber-window, and that of the little kitchen, and cold was the hearth within, and all was still as death, and no noise answered to the repeated knocks and calls of the friendly neighbour. She tried the chamber casement, but it was fastened within, and the little curtain drawn before it precluded all view of the interior. But, while the dame stood close to it, with her face glued to the glass, her ear caught an indistinct sound, and in a moment she distinguished the feeble wail of the little infant, but no mother's voice was heard tenderly hushing that plaintive murmur.

Quickly the good dame summoned the assistance of a few neighboursthe cottage door was forced open, and they passed on through the cold empty kitchen into the little bed-chamber. There stood the poor uncurtained bed whereon the widow and her daughter had slept side by side so lovingly, for so many quiet and innocent years, and where of late the new-born babe had nestled in his mother's bosom. It was still clinging there-alas!-to a lifeless breast. The living infant was al ready chilled by the stiffening cold. ness of the dead mother, who had been, to all appearance, for many hours a corpse. The immediate cause of her death was also too probably sur mised. She had evidently expired in a fit, and, from the cramped posture in which she was discovered, it was also evident her first impulse had been to turn herself round upon her face, so to baffle the approaching crisis. But