old, since he left his store," said the
first visitor, "and I hardly think his illness has progressed so
rapidly up to this time as to make an interview dangerous. We do not
wish to be rude or uncourteous, Miss W----, but our business with your
father is imperative, and we must see him. I, for one, do not intend
leaving the house until I meet him face to face!"

"Will you walk up stairs?" I had the presence of mind and decision to
say, and I moved from the parlor into the passage. The men followed,
and I led them up to the chamber where our distressed family were
gathered around my father. As we entered the hushed apartment the men
pressed forward somewhat eagerly, but their steps were suddenly
arrested. The sight was one to make its own impression. My father's
face, deathly in its hue, was turned towards the door, and from his
bared arm a stream of dark blood was flowing sluggishly. The physician
had just opened a vein.

"Come! This is no place for us," I heard one of the men whisper to the
other, and they withdrew as unceremoniously as they had entered.
Scarcely had they gone ere the loud ringing of the door bell sounded
through the house again.

"What does all this mean!" whispered my distressed mother.

"I cannot tell. Something is wrong," was all that I could answer; and a
vague, terrible fear took possession of my heart.

In the midst of our confusion, uncertainty and distress, my uncle, the
only relative of my mother, arrived, and from him we learned the
crushing fact that my father's paper had been that day dishonored at
bank. In other words, that he had failed in business.

The blow, long suspended over his head; and as I afterwards learned,
long dreaded, and long averted by the most desperate expedients to save
himself from ruin, when it did fall, was too heavy for him. It crushed
the life out of his enfeebled system. That fearful night he died!

It is not my purpose to draw towards the survivors any sympathy, by
picturing the changes in their fortunes and modes of life that followed
this sad event. They have all endured much and suffered much. But how
light has it been to what my father must have endured and suffered in
his long struggle to sustain the thoughtless extravagance of his
family--to supply them with comforts and luxuries, none of which he
could himself enjoy! Ever before me is the image of his gradually
wasting form, and pale, sober, anxious face. His voice, always mild,
now comes to my ea