ima lived happily until age gently did its work at
their appointed times; and Halil and Miriam inherited the house and the
wealth that had been gathered for them.

The supernatural part of the story remains to be told. The Weeping Chamber
was never again opened; but every time that a death was about to occur in
the family, a shower of heavy teardrops was heard to fall upon its marble
floor, and low wailings came through the walled doorway. Years, centuries,
passed away, and the mystery repeated itself with unvarying uniformity.
The family fell into poverty, and only occupied a portion of the house,
but invariably before one of its members sickened unto death, a shower of
heavy drops, as from a thunder cloud, pattered on the pavement of the
Weeping Chamber, and was heard distinctly at night through the whole
house. At length the family quitted the country in search of better
fortunes elsewhere, and the house remained for a long time uninhabited.

The lady who narrated the story went to live in the house, and passed some
years without being disturbed; but one night she was lying awake, and
distinctly heard the warning shower dripping heavily in the Weeping
Chamber. Next day the news came of her mother's death, and she hastened to
remove to another dwelling. The house has since been utterly abandoned to
rats, mice, beetles, and an occasional ghost seen sometimes streaming
along the rain-pierced terraces. No one has ever attempted to violate the
solitude of the sanctuary where Selima wept for the seven little ones
taken to the grave, and for the absent one whom she had treated with
unmotherly neglect.

AN OLD MAID'S FIRST LOVE.

I went once to the south of France for my health; and being recommended to
choose the neighborhood of Avignon, took my place, I scarcely know why, in
the diligence all the way from Paris. By this proceeding I missed the
steam-voyage down the Rhone, but fell in with some very pleasant people,
about whom I am going to speak. I traveled in the _interieur_, and from
Lyon had no one for companion but a fussy little lady, of a certain age,
who had a large basket, a parrot in a cage, a little lapdog, a band-box, a
huge blue umbrella, which she could never succeed in stowing any where,
and a moth-eaten muff. In my valetudinarian state I was not pleased with
this inroad--especially as the little lady had a thin, pinched-up face, and
obstinately looked out of the window, while she popped about the