d of their names and virtues, that
even their ashes were better than the ashes of common mortals. They
rendered sacred not only the still inclosure where they lay, but all
that beautiful sunny bank; so that nobody else had presumed to be buried
near them, but a space of many square rods on either side was left still
unappropriated,--until now, when, lo! here comes a black funeral, and
the corpse of one who had been a slave in his day, to profane the soil!

Nor is this all, alas! There comes not one funeral procession only. The
first has scarcely entered the cemetery, when a second arrives. Side by
side the dead of this day are to be laid: our old friend the negro, and
the lovely young lady we have mentioned,--even the fairest of Mr.
Frisbie's own children.

For it is she. The sweetest of the faces Fessenden's saw that stormy
night at the window, and yearned to be within the bright room where the
fire, was,--that dear warm face is cold in yonder coffin which the
afflicted family are attending to the tomb.

And Frisbie, as we have somewhere said, loved his children. And in the
anguish of his bereavement he had not heeded the singular and somewhat
humiliating fact that his daughter had issued from the portal of Time in
company with one of his most despised tenants,--that, in the same hour,
almost at the same moment, Death had summoned them, leading them
together, as it were, one with his right hand, and one with his left,
the way of all the world. So that here was a surprise for the proud and
grief-smitten parent.

"What is all that, Stephen?" he demands, with sudden consternation.

"It seems to be another funeral, Sir. They're buryin' somebody next lot
to yours."

"Who, who, Stephen?"

"I--I ruther guess it's the old nigger, Sir," says Stephen.

The mighty man is shaken. Wrath and sorrow and insulted affection
convulse him for a moment. His face grows purple, then pale, and he
struggles with his neckcloth, which is choking him. He sees the tall
form of Gingerford at the grave, and knows what it is to wish to murder
a man. Were those two Christian neighbors quite alone, in this solitude
of the dead, I fear one of them would soon be a fit subject for a
coroner's inquest and an epitaph. O pride and hatred! with what madness
can you inspire a mortal man! O Fessenden's! bless thy stars that thou
art not the only fool alive this day, nor the greatest!

Fessenden's walked alone to the funeral, talking by himself, and n