heir varied
experiences, Miss Chrissy liked to tell of scenes and memories suggested
by these somber reminders.

"It was a very cold day, Mrs. John," (so she always called me), "when
they buried your husband's uncle out there. Poor fellow! He was shot
at Buena Vista. A cannon-ball took off both his legs, and went right
through the horse he rode. He was a gallant officer. They thought at
first he would rally. The surgeons did their work quickly, and he
suffered little or no pain, but there was no chloroform in that day, and
he died from the shock. The snow was deep on the ground, but it was a
grand funeral. They've got a fine new cemetery out on the hill, but we
never go there. Our dead are all here where we can see their graves."

"Graves," came the echo, they had all along nodded, or murmured, assent.

"One of the saddest funerals we have ever seen." Miss Chrissy went on,
"was a double funeral. Two young men, both only sons, were drowned in
the river while bathing. Their mothers were widows. It was terrible. Two
hearses and two long lines of mourners. There they lie--over there in
that enclosure. They were cousins, and were buried side by side."

"The mothers, Chrissy!" mildly prompted the whisper, when the narrator
paused.

"Yes, the mothers! one died of a broken heart, and the other lost her
mind outright. She is living yet, an old woman, who regularly goes to
the front door of the asylum every morning and takes her seat. If it is
cold weather, she sits inside. She asks every one who enters if Luther
is coming--that was her boy's name."

"Did you know the first Mrs. John Hunt, Miss Chrissy--my husband's
grandmother?" I asked, willing to change the gloomy subject.

"Just as well as I know you, Mrs. John. She was a beautiful little
woman, I was very young at the time I am thinking of. She sent at night
for an embroidered flannel I was doing. It was my first wide pattern,
and it went slow. At 10 o'clock it was finished, and my father went with
me to take it home. They were all going to Washington to the President's
ball--President Monroe, it was--and the trunk was packing. It was to go
on the big traveling-coach. When I ran up stairs and knocked,--I had
often been there before--she opened the door herself. 'Oh, it's you
Chrissy,' she said in her pleasant way; 'come in child; don't you want
to see something pretty?' And she showed me two elegant brocaded silk
gowns, very narrow and very short-waisted, but stiff en