as a woman.
The wound healed in due time, but the Major did not rally. The drain
upon his vitality had been too great; he fell into a general decline,
which within a fortnight gave promise of fatal results. The Major met
the truth like a veteran; he arranged his affairs, by the aid of his
son, with a great show of method,--closed all in due time; and when he
felt his breath growing short, called Benjamin, and like a good officer
gave his last orders.

"Mabel," said he, "is provided for; it is but just that her mother's
property should be settled on her; I have done so. For yourself and
Eliza, you will have need of a close economy. I don't think you'll do
much at law; you once thought of preaching; if you think so now, preach,
Benjamin; there's something in it; at least it's better than
Fed--Federalism."

A fit of coughing seized him here, from which he never fairly rallied.
Benjamin took his hand when he grew quiet, and prayed silently, while
the Major slipped off the roll militant forever.

II.

The funeral was appointed for the second day thereafter. The house was
set in order for the occasion. Chairs were brought in from the
neighbors. A little table, with a Bible upon it, was placed in the
entrance-way at the foot of the stairs, that all might hear what the
clergyman should say. The body lay in the parlor, with the Major's sword
and cocked hat upon the coffin; and the old gentleman's face had never
worn an air of so much dignity as it wore now. Death had refined away
all trace of his irritable humors, of his passionate, hasty speech. It
looked like the face of a good man,--so said nine out of ten who gazed
on it that day; yet when the immediate family came up to take their last
glimpse,--the two girls being in tears,--in that dreary half-hour after
all was arranged, and the flocking-in of the neighbors was waited for,
Benjamin, as calm as the dead face below him, was asking himself if the
poor gentleman, his father, had not gone away to a place of torment. He
feared it; nay, was he not bound to believe it by the whole force of his
education? and his heart, in that hour, made only a feeble revolt
against the belief. In the very presence of the grim messenger of the
Eternal, who had come to seal the books and close the account, what
right had human affection to make outcry? Death had wrought the work
given him to do, like a good servant; had not he, too,--Benjamin,--a
duty to fulfil? the purposes of Eternal Ju