tshorn bottle, Sister
Slocum, to the great joy of all present, is so far restored as to be
able to announce the singular, but no less melancholy fact, that our
dear guest, Sister Swiggs, has passed from this world to a better. She
retired full of sorrow, but came not in the morning. And this so
troubled Sister Scudder that there was no peace until she entered her
room. But she found the angel had been there before her, smoothed the
pillow of the stranger, and left her to sleep in death. On earth her
work was well done, and in the arms of the angel, her pure spirit now
beareth witness in heaven. Sister Slocum's emotions forbid her saying
more. She concludes, and buries her face in her cambric. Then an
outpouring of consoling words follow. "He cometh like a thief in the
night: His works are full of mystery; truly, He chasteneth; He giveth
and taketh away." Such are a few of the sentiments lisped, regrettingly,
for the departed.

How vain are the hopes with which we build castles in the air; how
strange the motives that impel us to ill-advised acts. We leave
untouched the things that call loudest for our energies, and treasure up
our little that we may serve that which least concerns us. In this
instance it is seen how that which came of evil went in evil; how
disappointment stepped in and blew the castle down at a breath.

There could not be a doubt that the disease of which Sister Smiggs
died, and which it is feared the State to which she belongs will one day
die, was little dignity. Leaving her then in the arms of the House of
the Foreign Mission, and her burial to the Secretary of the very
excellent "Tract Society" she struggled so faithfully to serve, we close
this chapter of events, the reader having, no doubt, discovered the
husband of Madame Montford in the wretched man, Mr. Toddleworth.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE TWO PICTURES.

We come now to another stage of this history. Six months have glided
into the past since the events recorded in the foregoing chapter. The
political world of Charleston is resolved to remain in the Union a few
months longer. It is a pleasant evening in early May. The western sky is
golden with the setting sun, and the heavens are filled with battlements
of refulgent clouds, now softening away into night. Yonder to the East,
reposes a dark grove. A gentle breeze fans through its foliage, the
leaves laugh and whisper, the perfumes of flowers are diffusing through
the air birds make me