rkle on the various items as Mrs. Trigillgus
read them. At length she read a paragraph about the eclipse. "'And we
would advise every reader,'" she continued, "'to furnish himself with an
eclipse-glass, which he can procure at any of the news depots for the
sum of ten cents. The glass is nicely finished, and is very perfect for
the purpose intended. We understand that five millions of these glasses
have been put into the market, for which the country is indebted to the
genius and enterprise of our young fellow-citizen, Mr. Christian Van
Pelt, assisted by Mr. W. V. Ten Eyck.'"

"He has done it! he has again stabbed me!" cried Mary Trigillgus, with
the maniac's glare in her eyes. "The gold is his--his and hers! Piles of
gold! and they have cut it out of my heart, dug it out of my brain! I
have nothing left! Don't you see, mother, I am only an empty shell? Stab
me here in the heart, where he has stabbed me: it won't hurt. There's
nothing there! nothing! it's all hollow." There was no longer any doubt
that Mary Trigillgus's mind was unhinged.

During all that day men and children were crying the eclipse-glasses in
the street, selling them at every door.

"Hear them! hear them!" the poor maniac would cry. "They are selling
millions of them! they are piling the gold all about him and her! They
are to have a palace of gold, and Mary's to have only the ashes. Poor
Mary! poor Mary! All the good's for them, all the pain's for Mary!" and
then she would weep herself into a quiet mood of despondency.

The next day, the day of the eclipse, Mary demanded one of the glasses,
and would not be diverted from her desire. She read the advertisement on
the eclipse-glass: "Babcock's Fire-Extinguisher will put out any fire!
Get one!"

"Mother, get me one: I have a fire here;" and she pressed her hand to
her brow. She examined the glass again and again, looking it over and
over, and reading the advertisement aloud: "Babcock's Fire-Extinguisher
will put out any fire! Get one!" All day long, at short intervals, she
was running to the window and looking through the glass at the sun.

And when the grand hour arrived for the wonderful phenomenon, when the
five million glasses were raised to witness the obscuration, and the
weird twilight had settled over all nature, this young life too had
passed into a total eclipse, from which it has never for a moment
emerged.

The poor lunatic never rages. She is sweet and harmless as a child. She
makes