"I was not then aware," continued Lindsay, "of the inhuman precautions employed to arrest the progress of the pestilence: I did not know that the instant any one fell sick in a house, nay, upon the rumour merely of sickness having shown itself, persons were despatched to shut it up, and watchmen were appointed to keep guard night and day, to prevent any one from either going in or coming out; thus consigning to inevitable death, or miraculous escape, the infected and the healthy! It was natural, therefore, when I saw my own dwelling thus closed and thus watched, that I should conclude not a living creature breathed within its walls. This was terrible enough: but, alas! it fell far, very far short of what was actually the case of what my eyes were doomed to witness, my bursting brain to endure.

"I made myself known to the men. I asked, in agony, how long my wife and children had been dead, and where they were buried? Then it was I learned the horrible truth. One of the fellows, a churlish caitiff, with an unpitying tongue, told me he did not believe any body was dead yet in the house, for the dead-cart had not been stopped!' I cannot describe to you the effect this answer produced! The image of what their situation must be, passed like a grim vision before me. I pictured a scene of misery under which my senses staggered. I demanded to be admitted. I was denied. With frenzied strength I attempted to wrench off the padlock, and batter in the massy door. The men raised their long iron-armed poles, and threatened to strike me down, if I did not desist.

greet me! A fearful silence reigned. I stood in the hall, and strained my ears to catch a living sound that might tell me I was not standing in the sepulchre of my whole race. A faintness came over me. My limbs shook. Involuntary tears (for I had no power to give my thoughts the direction that might have produced them), burst forth. I sat down upon a bench that was near, to recover myself, and gain fortitude for a scene I no longer doubted was prepared for me.

"After a few moments I arose, to seek the apartment at the window of which I had seen my daughter. But as I passed a small room that opened from the first landing-place, the door was open, and I saw my son Benjamin, a comely youth, twelve years old, lying dead upon a couch! I cannot say loved him best, for all my children were very dear to me; but at that moment I thought I did. I threw myself upon my knees beside his body; I kissed his livid lips, and with my own trembling hands closed his eyes, which seemed to look upon me, as they had ever done, with mild affection. He was still warm, so I knew life had not long departed.'

"While gazing at him, I heard a soft, slow step descending. I turned round-it was my Rachel! I sprung towards her I held her in a passionate embrace to my almost breaking heart. My tears fell upon her cheek as she lay senseless in my arms-tears of joy, of gratitude, of hope! My God! my God!' I cried, blessed be thy name! I am not wholly wretched! I am still a husband and a father!' Oh, my friend-it is only when we believe ourselves robbed of all, that the possession of a treasure we have not lost, can overwhelm us thus with transport amid our sorrow for what is irrevocably gone.

"My transports, alas! were soon over. Rachel had left Benjamin alive not half an hour before, called from his side to attend our youngest daughter Judith, whose condition was yet more alarming. Her delirious screams tore her away from the mild and patient sufferer, who complained not. But Judith was at rest too! dying, as I learned, more like a strong man, than a tender girl of fourteen. Think, my friend, what a task was mine, when, recover

ing from the swoon into which the sight of me had thrown her, I had to lead her to the couch whereon now lay the lifeless form of our son!

"It must have been dreadful!' exclaimed Mr. Pemberton.

"To me it was so-but with the stricken mother that feeling was past. Poor boy!' was all she said, as she looked upon him; and taking a napkin from her pocket, she gently wiped away the black froth that already began to ooze from his mouth. She neither wept nor sighed. "Come,' said she, come from danger,' and she led me out of the room. I rejoice for thy return, my dear Gabriel; she continued, but Heaven grant I may not have bitter cause to grieve at it hereafter. It was but last night, in the midst of all my own heavy affliction, I silently prayed to God he might turn your steps from this devoted city."

"She conducted me to the apartment where my only remaining children, my son Joseph and my daughter Alice, were sitting, like victims waiting for their turn to die. Joseph was supporting his sister, after having recovered her from the fit into which she had fallen at the window. The ashy hand of sickness had swept away all the beauty from her cheeks: but, as yet, neither of them had been attacked by the pestilence. The condition of Alice was merely the effect of grief and terror.

"I learned from Rachel that the men stationed outside, to watch the house night and day, were instructed to execute any commissions that might be required; to obtain food, drink, medicine, or other necessaries. These they deposited in the passage, or conveyed in at the window. I understood, also, a nurse might be obtained, tempted by a large sum of money; but having once entered the house, she would not be allowed to quit it till the prescribed period. Medical men, alone, under certain regulations, were permitted to have ingress and

egress.

Night came. I heard the dismal tolling of a bell, and the more dismal cry, at intervals, of 'Bring out your dead!' I looked from the window, and saw the red, dusky glare of the torches, carried by the men who belonged to the deadcart. I perceived they stopped at al

most every house; and dreadful were the shrieks and wailings of those who were compelled thus to part with the remains of parents, children, kindred, without being allowed to follow them to the grave, to provide them with a coffin, or to give them any of the commonest rites of burial. I looked at Rachel as the lumbering cart came rolling heavily towards our own dwelling. I could not speak. She understood me; for falling upon my neck, and shedding the first tears I had seen, No, Gabriel!' she exclaimed, I cannot part with them yet. To-morrow night!'

"The next night came; but before the sun went down that day, my firstborn, my Alice, had breathed her soul away in these arms. She must have had the disease lurking in her, though we suspected it not; for in the morning she awoke with grievous pains in her head, her throat and tongue red as blood, her breathing hard, and her breath pestilentially noisome. Towards noon violent convulsions came on, and she complained of scorching heat over her whole body, with such excessive soreness of the skin that she could not bear the covering of the finest linen. I despatched one of the watchers outside for a doctor.

"He came; but was satisfied with looking upon her at a distance: the tokens of the plague were too plainly visible. He pronounced her beyond the aid of medicine, and left her to die. My curses followed him as he departed; for I was half frantic, and could not believe death so certain. My wife, who had seen the symptoms and progress of the disease in our children already dead, bade me, in a voice of stifled anguish, 'be resigned, for hope there was none!' Almost while she spoke, my child's death-shriek pierced my heart. What a shriek it was! She was dead!

"My wife fell upon her knees before me; with uplifted hands and eyes she exclaimed, 'Oh, the great and the dreadful God!' My son came forward silently, to raise his afflicted mother, while I, stupified, unable to speak or move, hugged my dead Alice closer to me, as if I could yet shield her from some horrible danger.

"I believe I was roused from this stupor by the rumbling of the dead-cart at midnight, the hollow sound of the

bell, and the hoarse, horrid cry of 'Bring out your dead. I have never had, and have not now, the recollection of any thing that passed till then, from the moment my poor Rachel was kneeling at my feet. I had been permitted too (or, for aught I know, I would do so), to sit all those hours with my mournful burden in my arms; for when the coming of the dead-cart awakened me to consciousness, the corpse of Alice was still resting on my bosom.

"I looked round the room. I was alone. My son was not there: Rachel was not there. A horrible dread came over me. I called upon them in a loud screaming voice. No one answered. I flung the body from me in wild distraction, and ran towards the door, repeating franticly the names of Rachel and Joseph. My wife came to me, pale and trembling. She was followed by three hideous-looking men, one bearing a torch. To the grave!' said she, in a whisper, looking at me with a stony expression of her fixed eyes. To the grave! It must be ; I and Joseph have bid them.' I covered my face with my hands, and only heard what was done!

"But why should I harrow up your feelings, my friend, by a recital of sufferings like these? Every hour, every minute, of the days I passed in that pest-house, brought with it still-increasing anguish, distinguished by no change of circumstance. Death held on his grisly revels, till there would have been mercy in continuing, and then he

stopped. On the fourth day my son sickened of the plague, and dropped down dead before our eyes, almost without a token of its presence; though immediately after dissolution his body broke out into fetid sores, the stench of which was so loathsome, that we were impatient for the night and the coming of the dead-cart.

"In vain I now implored that we might be allowed to remove; in vain I cffered large bribes to let us flee; in vain I grew desperate, and threatened to force our way out at whatever hazard. A deaf ear was turned equally to prayers, to temptation, and to menaces.

"At length the calamity I most dreaded overtook me. On the sixth night my wife's hour of travail suddenly came on; and there was no human being save myself near her; and-"

For the first time Lindsay's voice faltered, and he paused.

"No!" he continued, while tears rolled down his cheeks. " 'No, no! that is too frightful! It drove me mad ; and there comes a huge blank after that terrific night, which is full of nameless horror! Even now I hear the voice of Rachel moaning in my ears, Oh, the great and the dreadful God !'"

Mr. Pemberton was hardly able to offer his dying friend consolation; but he did what he could; and two days after listening to this "appalling history of a single week," he received his parting blessing as he calmly expired!