he
shrouded and coffined form of what was once her mother's body, but were
following her into the world beyond our mortal vision, as we follow a
dear friend who has gone from us on a long journey.

And thus it was that Blanche Montgomery entered upon her new life.
Death's shadow fell upon the torch of Hymen. There was a rain of grief
just as the sun of love poured forth his brightest beams, and the bow
which spanned the horizon gave, in that hour of grief, sweet promise for
the future.

These exciting events in the experience of our young friends had come
upon us so suddenly, that our minds were half bewildered. A few weeks
served, however, to bring all things into a right adjustment with our
own daily life and thought, and Ivy Cottage became one of the places
that grew dearer to us for the accumulating memories of pleasant hours
spent there with true-hearted ones who were living for something more
than the unreal things of this world.

How many times was the life that beat so feverishly in the Allen House,
and that which moved to such even pulsings in Ivy Cottage, contrasted in
my observation! Ten years of a marriage such as Delia Floyd so unwisely
consummated, had not served for the development of her inner life to any
right purpose. She had kept on in the wrong way taken by her feet in
the beginning, growing purse proud, vain, ambitious of external
pre-eminence, worldly-minded, and self-indulgent. She had four children,
who were given up almost wholly to the care of hirelings. There was,
consequent upon neglect, ignorance, and bad regimen, a great deal of
sickness among them, and I was frequently called in to interpose my
skill for their relief. Poor little suffering ones! how often I pitied
them An occasional warning was thrown in, but it was scarcely heeded
by the mother, who had put on towards me a reserved stateliness, that
precluded all friendly remonstrance.

At least two months of every summer Mrs. Dewey was absent from S----,
intermitting between Saratoga and Newport, where she abandoned herself
to all the excitements of fashionable dissipation. Regularly each year
we saw her name in the New York correspondence of the Herald, as the
"fascinating Mrs. D----;" the "charming wife of Mr. D----;" or in some
like style of reference. At last, coupled with one of these allusions,
was an intimation that "it might be well if some discreet friend would
whisper in the lady's ear that she was a little too intimate wit