went down that way. There is something desolate in a lonely kitchen on Sunday afternoon, when the fires have died out, and the cat sits, looking wicked and suspicious, amid the cold ashes on the hearth. I know my footsteps were as light as pussy's own when I passed through, for I did not want to disturb the silence which reigned there, and so, ascending the narrow stairs, I found myself in the hall. The parlors were open-they too were vacant. Then it was, while wondering at the solitude, I heard a sound in the upper room, so unlike any thing I had ever heard—not a cry of grief, or groan of pain-but a faint, inarticulate moaning, so different from a human voice, and yet so unlike that of an animal, that my very flesh crept with terror. My pores seemed to drink in the sounds as I stood there, dumb with indefinable dread, and some moments elapsed before I could collect my thoughts. Then it came to me that Aunt Miranda might be in a fit, or something of the kind, and so, without waiting, I bounded up the stairs and thrust open the door of her apartment.

There was a small black trunk upon the floor, open; and scattered around it lay several dresses which had evidently belonged to some little child. But oh, the piercing lustre of those eyes which glared upon me as she rose from her knees when I entered! That wild, terrible look, as if

it would blast me !-I, who had rashly ventured in upon the mystery which had been buried, as within a tomb, for so many years! Her cap was thrust back from her high forehead, and the thick black locks, mingled with gray, appeared to writhe around her fingers like serpents, as she came on; her lips working, but uttering no sound, until her face was so close I could feel her hot breath upon my cheek and then stretching forth her fingers as if to clutch me, her voice came forth in a fierce, passionate sob, and she fell forward, and rolled over at my feet.

It was the most awful moment in my life, as I stood there with clasped hands, looking upon the poor, senseless form before me; instantly I heard a heavy step upon the stairs; fortunately, it was the faithful Margaret who had returned, and the blood rushed to my heart with such joy when I saw her homely, good-natured face, that I well-nigh swooned with the sudden revulsion.

Some time elapsed before I saw Aunt Miranda again. It was at night, in my bedroom; a few sticks were smouldering, and darting fitful gleams of light from the hearth, upon the looped up curtains of the bed; flickering warmly within the folds of chintz; and now and then bringing to view a sickly array of small bottles on the mantel. Rowley was sitting at the foot of the bed, and beside it, hold

ing my fever-wasted hand in her own, with the same sweet, angelic smile upon her face, which Rowley and I loved so much, was Aunt Miranda. I had been delirious for some weeks with the brain fever.

Rowley and I loved each other dearly. We had had too many bickerings-too many little quarrels-too many heartfelt reconciliations-for either of us not to know that. So after we graduated (and Rowley had the valedictory), we commenced the study of medicine together, with Dr. Frisbee, and after that was over, put up our two narrow, black tin signs, with gold letters, on a very white window shutter, one under the other, in a secluded part of the town, where practice was plenty, and patients were poor.

How many times Aunt Miranda came to visit us! She seemed to know all that was going on among the poor folks in our neighborhood, although she lived in a distant part of the town; and if she did not abate one jot of her dignity when with the poor, her efforts to relieve the sufferers never flagged; there she was, by the bedside, with the same smile Rowley and I loved so much (that angelic smile), and often and often a fee was paid us out of her own pocket, when our services had been more arduous than usual. It was of no use to refuse it. Aunt Miranda had an imperative way with her, so lofty, we did not dare to

contradict it. And her custom (if it might so be called) was worth more to us than that of all the rest of our patients put together.

Lamps

It was a dreary night in mid-winter (how well I remember it), when Rowley and I met at the door of our office after the usual rounds among the sick. It was late too; the only light visible was a sort of luminous halo which surrounded the cellar window of a baker, far up the street, who was preparing bread for the morning. there were none, but a moon was somewhere, which only made the gloom palpable the snow did not fall, but swept through the streets in horizontal lines, blinding and stinging "like wasps' tails," as the old watchman said around the corner. While we stood there knocking the snow off our feet, a large willow tree was blown down across the road, and a white ghastly sheet dropt with a loud noise from the roof of an adjoining house. Rowley and I were glad to get by the office hearth, on which a few embers kept a bright look-out among the ashes, and so laying on the wood we soon had a cheerful hickory fire. Still the wind growled and mumbled outside, with the dreary accompaniment of creaking signs and groaning trees; sometimes it lulled for a moment, only to return with appalling violence -the house fairly rocked with it, and we could hear the

snow beating and sifting through the crevices of the windows. Tired as we were, we did not think of sleep, but sat as men sometimes will in great storms, telling dismal stories, or listening to the noises outside, or talking of the poor we had visited, many of whom were ill provided with shelter against such pitiless weather. So the time passed on beyond midnight; the wind by and by went down, but the snow kept falling softly and fast ;-I thought I heard a noise-hush !— a muffled sound like a watchman's club in the distance then another—then voices approaching, we heard heavy steps on our stoop, and a loud knock at the door. Rowley and I sprang to our feet in an instant, and putting back the bolt, saw three men, watchmen, bearing a body; we assisted them in, they laid him (it was a man) upon our bed, which stood partly behind the office door; he was not dead, but very nearly so.

Upon examination, we found three wounds in the left temple; the central one larger than the other two, but none of them more than the eighth of an inch square, nor much more than an inch apart-they were deep, however, as we ascertained by the probe. The largest wept a little blood with every pulsation; the man was insensible, but his chest heaved strongly; we knew he could not live long, in fact in the course of an hour his breathing grew fainter, and fainter-stopped: he was dead.