os of those who had "gone before,"--five coarse and
unartistic, but loving tributes to the dead.

There they hang, framed in black, each with its white tomb and
overhanging willow, and severally inscribed to the memories of Mark,
John, James, Martha, and Mary Newell. All their flock. None left to
honor and obey, none to cheer, none to lighten the labor or soothe the
cares. All gone, and these two left behind to travel hand in hand, but
desolate, though together, to the end of their earthly pilgrimage.

There had, indeed, been one other, but for him there hung no loving
memorial. He was the youngest of all, and such a noble, strong, and
lusty infant, that the father, in the pride of his heart, and with his
fondness for Scriptural names, had christened him Samson. He, too, had
gone; but in the dread gallery that hung about the room there was no
framed funereal picture "To the Memory of Samson Newell." If in the tomb
of his father's or mother's heart he lay buried, no outward token gave
note thereof.

So the old couple sat alone before the sitting-room fire. It was not
often used, this room,--scarcely ever now, except upon Sunday, or on
those two grave holidays that the Newells kept,--Thanksgiving- and
Fast-Day. This was Thanksgiving-Day. The snow without was falling thick
and fast. It came in great eddies and white whirls, obscuring the
prospect from the windows and scudding madly around the corners. It lay
in great drifts against the fences, and one large pile before the middle
front-window had gathered volume till it reached half up the second row
of panes; for it had snowed all night and half the day before. The roads
were so blocked by it that they would have been rendered impassable but
for the sturdy efforts of the farmers' boys, who drove teams of four and
five yokes of oxen through the drifts with heavily laden sleds, breaking
out the ways. The sidewalks in the little village were shovelled and
swept clean as fast as the snow fell; for, though all business was
suspended, according to the suggestion in the Governor's proclamation,
and in conformity to old usage, still they liked to keep the paths open
on Thanksgiving-Day,--the paths and the roads; for nearly half the
families in the place expected sons and daughters from far away to
arrive on the train which should have been at the railroad-station on
the previous evening, but had been kept back by the snow.

But Jacob and Ruth Newell had neither son nor daughte