ous; Annie
was happy in the affection of her husband, her children and her
friends, but death lingered not for these things; he came, a most
unwelcome visitant, and bore his unwilling victim from the presence of
her agonized mother, "to join the pale nations of the dead."

She dressed her in the gilded trappings of life, bolstered her up in
bed, and curling her beautiful hair in glossy ringlets over her pale
face, had her likeness taken as large as life, and touched with
natural coloring, thus preserving the form and features of her child,
upon the senseless canvass, which was kept hung up in her room,
covered with black crape, during her life time.

Annie ever expressed repugnance at the idea of being deposited in
the ground, and her mother had this tomb built that she might there
repose, and she could watch her sleeping dust as it crumbled to decay.

Who that looked in upon that mouldering mass of blackened dust, and
contrasted it with the beautiful form that moved in life, but learned
an impressive lesson of the change that death makes upon the form of
youth and beauty? She had slept there many years, and the mother felt
the time was approaching, when she must take the last look of those
dear remains, and have them removed to the second vault, or buried
beneath the grassy turf; but ere the time arrived, the great reaper
gathered father and mother into his abundant harvest, and laid them by
her side.

Her husband, many years before, had passed from life's busy scenes,
and closed his eyes forever upon earth.

The little girl was placed in a coffin, and borne by weeping friends
to the burial place, and with her dead brother, lay side by side,
beautiful in death.

Fresh buds were placed in the hands of each, as they lay, with their
little arms entwined around each other, and their white marble
faces, looking up to the pure sky above, while their half-open lids
displaying their blue orbs, seemed looking out beneath the drooping
fringes, to take a last farewell of earth, sun, sky, friends, and all
the endearing associations of life.

A little mound was raised beside the grave of the maternal
grandfather, who had fallen suddenly, in the meridian of life, while
the strength of manhood was yet upon him. As the aged grandmother
turned from the grave of the little ones, she gave one lingering
glance to her husband's grave, and removing her glove from her hand,
pressed the marble slab, that stood at the head of it, and