ood people round, leaving little or almost nothing, and
nobody to inherit it. Not absolutely nothing, of course. There must
have been a few old dresses--perhaps some bits of furniture, a Bible, and
the spectacles the good old souls read it through, and little keepsakes,
such as make us cry to look at, when we find them in old drawers;--such
relics there must have been. But there was more. There was a manuscript
of some hundred pages, closely written, in which the poor things had
chronicled for many years the incidents of their daily life. After their
death it was passed round somewhat freely, and fell into my hands. How I
have cried and laughed and colored over it! There was nothing in it to
be ashamed of, perhaps there was nothing in it to laugh at, but such a
picture of the mode of being of poor simple good old women I do believe
was never drawn before. And there were all the smallest incidents
recorded, such as do really make up humble life, but which die out of all
mere literary memoirs, as the houses where the Egyptians or the Athenians
lived crumble and leave only their temples standing. I know, for
instance, that on a given day of a certain year, a kindly woman, herself
a poor widow, now, I trust, not without special mercies in heaven for her
good deeds,--for I read her name on a proper tablet in the churchyard a
week ago,--sent a fractional pudding from her own table to the Maiden
Sisters, who, I fear, from the warmth and detail of their description,
were fasting, or at least on short allowance, about that time. I know
who sent them the segment of melon, which in her riotous fancy one of
them compared to those huge barges to which we give the ungracious name
of mudscows. But why should I illustrate further what it seems almost a
breach of confidence to speak of? Some kind friend, who could challenge
a nearer interest than the curious strangers into whose hands the book
might fall, at last claimed it, and I was glad that it should be
henceforth sealed to common eyes. I learned from it that every good and,
alas! every evil act we do may slumber unforgotten even in some earthly
record. I got a new lesson in that humanity which our sharp race finds
it so hard to learn. The poor widow, fighting hard to feed and clothe
and educate her children, had not forgotten the poorer ancient maidens. I
remembered it the other day, as I stood by her place of rest, and I felt
sure that it was remembered elsewhere. I kn