e.

A few steps and we reach a cottage, where other parents were watching
over a little son of five years, who is wasting away with consumption.
His attenuated limbs bear his little frame but feebly, and he often
talks of death, for he has recently seen a little sister younger than
himself fall a prey to the fearful malady. A burning fever is raging
in his veins, and lights up his eye with unwonted brilliancy, as he
tossed restlessly from side to side upon his pillow. His silken hair
of beautiful brown is brushed smoothly back from his high, marble
forehead, while gentle hands apply the cooling bath, to still if
possible, its tumultuous throbbings, and he murmurs of sweet sister
and of heaven. Soft words of love are whispered in his ear, and he is
told of the Lamb of God that bids little children to come unto him.

And thought not these weary watchers of that lonely night, of the
revellers in that distant hall? Methinks their hearts went up in
fervent prayer to God that he would spare them yet a little longer,
for there were immortal souls there, for whom he labored and prayed,
who entered the sanctuary and heard the word of God as it fell from
his lips, Sabbath after Sabbath, and he felt sensibly that the
midnight revel would not prepare the heart to seek God, or make the
necessary preparation for death. Towards morning the eyes of the
little sufferer closed in uneasy slumber, and the parents too, were
refreshed by a short interval of sleep.

Passing yet in another direction was a tall youth, with a subdued
expression of countenance, hurrying on, in spite of wind and rain, to
the doctor's office, to procure assistance for a sick mother, who was
tossing in all the agony of brain fever. The doctor had been called
away to visit a little child that had a sudden attack of the croup,
that fearful disease that bears so many children to the tomb. He
returned again with a sorrowing heart. Heeded he the sweet tones of
music that fell upon his youthful ear? wished he to join the gay group
as they flitted before the brilliantly lighted, window, and the fairy
forms of the fashionable, and the pleasure-seeking met his eye? O,
no; there was sorrow in his young heart, and sorrow brooded over the
household. Towards midnight the doctor came, and a young daughter,
younger than many who graced the festive ball, following his
directions, alleviated the sufferings of a sick mother, and wore the
weary night away in anxious watchings.

N