Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by

TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

THURSTON, YOLRY, AND EMERSON, PRINTERS.

THE

STORY OF THE BACK-ROOM WINDOW.

near us.

We live in a world of busy passions. Love and hate, sorrow and joy, in a thousand shapes, are for ever Death is at our threshold. Life springs up almost at our feet. Our neighbors are 'exultations, agonies!' And yet we seem to live on, ignorant of all.

Could we but unroof (Asmodeus-like) the houses which, day after day, present towards us so insensible an aspect, what marvels might we not disclose! What fruitful thoughts, what radiant visions, would throng into our brain! The mystery of human conduct would lie unveiled. We should see and know all men truly. We should see the miser, the spendthrift, the scholar, the toiling artisan, the happy bride, and the girl deserted (like the people in the palace of Truth); all contributing their share to the unknown romance, which time is for ever weaving round us. As it is, each of them spins out his little thread, and dies, almost unknown, and soon forgotten; unless some curious accident should arise, to extend his influence into another region, or to hold his 'fame' in suspension,

twenty years after his coffin has been lowered into the dust.

It was some such chance as I have just adverted to, that threw into our knowledge certain facts, regarding a neighboring family, which else had probably slipped very quietly into oblivion. You will observe, that what I am now about to relate is almost literally, a fact.

'Some years ago, we lived, as you know, in B— Square. The room in which we usually dwelt was at the back of the house. It was spacious, and not without some pretensions to the graceful, the marble chimney-piece being distinguished by a painting of Cipriani, whilst on the ceiling lay scattered some of the conventional elegances of Angelica Kauffman. From the windows which occupied the northern extremity of the room we looked (to the left of a large oriental plane) upon the back of a crescent of houses the points of the arc receding from us. [I mention these things merely to recall to your mind our precise position.]

'In the centre of this crescent, was a house which had for a long time been untenanted. Whilst its neighbor dwellings were all busy with life and motion, this only was, for some reason, deserted. We were beginning to speculate on the causes of this accident, and to pity the unhappy landlord, whose pockets were lamenting the lack of rent, when suddenly - it was on an April morning-we perceived, for the first time, signs of change. The windows of the deserted mansion were opened, and workmen were seen bustling about its different rooms. There was an air of preparation, evidently, which announced an incoming tenant.