on of
a traveller may discover to us where one of them resided or resides. The
page of an obituary may accidentally inform us how long one of them
lingered on the bed of sickness, and by what death he died. Some we may
perhaps discover in elevated situations, from which worldly pride might
probably prevent their stooping down to recognise us. Others, immersed
in the labyrinths of business, have forgot all, in the selfish pursuits
of earthly accumulation. While the rest, the children of misfortune and
disappointment, we may occasionally find out amid the great multitude of
the streets, to whom life is but a desert of sorrow, and against whom
prosperity seems to have shut for ever her golden gates.

Such are the diversities of condition, the varieties of fortune to which
man is exposed, while climbing the hill of probationary difficulty. And
how sublimely applicable are the words of Job, expatiating on the
uncertainty of human existence: "Man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man
giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea,
and the flood decayeth and drieth up; so man lieth down and riseth not
till the heavens be no more."

While standing on the same spot, where of yore the boyish multitude
congregated in pursuit of their eager sports, a silent awe steals over
the bosom, and the heart desponds at the thought, that all these once
smiling faces are scattered now! Some, mayhap, tossing on the waste and
perilous seas; some the merchants of distant lands; some fighting the
battles of their country; others dead--inhabitants of the dark and narrow
house, and hearing no more the billows of life, that thunder and break
above their low and lonely dwelling-place!

* * * * *

Nanse, who was sitting by the table, knitting a pair of light-blue
worsted stockings for Benjie, and myself, who was sewing on the buttons
of a velveteen jacket for a country lad, were, I must say, not a little
delighted, not only with the way in which the Welshman's late master had
spoken of his school-fellows, but with the manner in which James Batter,
with his specs on, had read it over to us. Upon my word--and that of an
elder--I do not believe that even Mr Wiggie himself could have done the
thing greater justice. It was just as if he had been a play-actor man,
spouting Douglas's tragedy.

Having folded up that paper, and turned over not a few others, the
docketings of which he read out to us, James at last says, "Ou ay, he