rare exotics nodded to each other across gilded
slab and sculptured angels. That he profoundly mourned his loss no
charitable mind could doubt, notwithstanding the obstinate fact that
ere the violets had bloomed a twelvemonth over the dead mother of
his children he had provided them with one who certainly bore her
name, usurped her precious privileges, walked in her footsteps, but
wofully failed to fill her place.

Mrs. Daniel Grey, scarcely the senior of the step-daughter whose lips
most reluctantly framed the sacred word "mother," was a fresh fair
young thing, whose ideas of marriage extended no further than
diamonds, white satin, reception cards, and bridal presents; and whose
regard for her worthy husband sought no surer basis than his
bank-stock and insurance dividends. Dainty and bright, in tasteful and
costly apparel, the pretty child-wife flitted up and down in his house
and over the serene surface of his life, touching no feeling of his
nature so deeply as that colossal _parvenu_ vanity which exulted in
the possession of a graceful walking announcement of his ability to
clothe in fine fabrics and expensive jewels.

Perhaps the mildew that stained the ghastly gaunt angels who kept
guard over the dust of the dead wife, extended yet further than the
silent territory over which sexton and mattock reigned, for one dreary
December night, instead of nestling for a post-prandial nap among the
velvet cushions of his luxurious parlor, Daniel Grey, capitalist,
slept his last sleep in a high-backed, comfortless chair before his
desk, where the confidential clerk found him next morning, with his
rigid icy fingers thrust between the leaves of his check-book.

According to the old Arab proverb,--

"The black camel named Death kneeleth once at each door,
And a mortal must mount to return nevermore."

And, past all peradventure, having borne away one member of the
household, the "Last Carrier" from force of habit hastens to perform
the same thankless service for the remainder;--thus ere summer
sunshine streamed on the husband's grave, another yawned at its side,
and a wreathed and fluted shaft shot up close to his mausoleum, to
tell sympathizing friends and careless strangers that the second wife
of Daniel Grey had been snatched away in the morning of life.

Her infant son Ulpian was committed to the tender guardianship of his
maternal grandmother, in whose hands he remained until the close of
his fourth year, when