Page:Letters of Life.djvu/305

Rh Our new abode, being of much smaller dimensions, required dexterous arrangement in transferring our goods and chattels. The large dining-tables, massy side-board, and other similar furniture, with the alabaster ornaments of the broad mantel-pieces, could not obtain admission. The carved, high-post bedsteads were sawed down to accommodate the lower ceilings, and readily resumed their functions. If, at first, any one might fancy that respiration during warm summer nights might be impeded in those comparatively confined chambers, it was a mistake. We have breathed very well here for years; and after a little judicious management of allotted space, and acclimation of the feelings, it became entirely comfortable.

Yet not all who had composed our household on the hill accompanied us hither. Four years before we left, Death had summoned the first being who had ever passed from its halls to his narrow house. My mother, at the age of sixty-seven, fell the victim of an acute dysentery; and she, who from birth had nurtured me with an exclusive, almost idolatrous love, was a cold form of clay.

Our circle was also ere long to be diminished by the