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320 humanity did it still impart! The rich black curls lay in profusion round the graceful head, and the long dark lash yet rested on the pallid cheek, and gave a semblance of life to the statue-like form.

Many have a horror of looking upon the dead—they are wrong; futurity and peace are written on the composed and beautiful countenance; it suggests the idea of an intellectual slumber. The sleep of the living is feverish and agitated; the passion and the sorrow are on the flushed cheek and the tremulous lip—but that of death is the sleep of the soul. No one can gaze upon the dead, and not feel, indeed, that they are gone to a land where "the wicked cease from troubling,and the weary are at rest."

Still, that is a dreadful week which elapses before the burial. We defer too long the returning of earth to earth; the loathsome work of corruption should begin in the dust. The darkened house, the stealing steps, the subdued voices, and the haunting consciousness that there is that under the same roof with yourself which is not of this world, all combine to keep the mind in a state of terrible excitement. And yet, with this vague atmosphere of dread around you, how strangely is the ludicrous mingled! The mocking and the absurd is stamped upon the funeral preparations.