as not long in
becoming satisfied that the person I saw was a young widow at the grave
of her husband, now three or four weeks dead, hither on her accustomed
morning visit to display her love and affection for his memory.

Bowing her head, for a few moments she gave way to sobs and weeping, and
then, removing the cover from a little willow basket, which stood by her
side, she took from it handfuls of bright flowers, and began to adorn
the table of sods upon the top of the mound.

As I regard her thus employed, weaving the tokens of her affection into
garlands, chaplets, and fanciful devices, arranging their symbolic
characters into interpretable monograms and hieroglyphs, matching their
colors and blending their hues and shades with the skill of an artist,
she becomes more and more absorbed in her work, the tears disappear from
her eyes, and the morning light flushes her pale and beautiful face. Is
she thinking now, I wonder, of the dead husband, or of something else?
What has she found among the flowers so consoling? Do they suggest
pleasant fancies, or recall the memories of happy days? Have they,
perhaps, a double meaning,--souvenirs of felicity as well as symbols
of sorrow? Are they opiates obliterating actual suffering, or prophets
uttering hopeful predictions? Or is it none of these things, and does
she find her work pleasant only because duty makes its performance
cheerful labor? I cannot say _what_ it is, but _something_ has assuaged
her grief; for I see her smiling now, as she holds a rosebud in her
fingers, and gazes at it abstractedly; and her thoughts and feelings,
whatever they may be, are indubitably not of a mournful character;--in
fact, I am sure that she never was happier in her life than she is at
this moment.

"Happy, do you say?"

Yes, I say happy.

The nature of woman, it is conceded by all men, is a curious,
interesting, and perplexing, if not, in respect of positive practical
results, a most unsatisfactory study. But nothing puzzles us so much
to comprehend as the fact just alluded to. The tenderest female
constitution will sustain a burden of grief which would crush a robust
and iron-nerved man, and drive him to despair and suicide. A woman
rarely succumbs to a calamity; however sudden and overwhelming the
initial shock may be, she revives and grows cheerful and happy under it
in a way and to a degree marvellous to behold. What singular secret is
there among the psychological mysteries of h