The Old Homestead

thirst and wi

moaned on her

heart he must g

l they two

, where the st

to Heaven with

back with its

anguish and s

er had not come back, and if there was yet no tidings from the Mayor's office. They answered that he had but just left the house, and that he had been with h

d spread in anticipation of Mr. Chester's return,

rring the tea with a bright silver teaspoon, the last they ha

o take the tea, but her head was dizzy, and afte

Oh, for a glass of

ome water. But it tasted tepid to the poor inval

d Mary; "this does not seem like nothing bu

or invalid, clasping her hot fingers together, "now that I am

so will Isabel!" replied

membering the look and manner of that unhappy man, she could not say this with truth, knowing well, as if it had been told her in words, th

. Chester, meekly folding her hands, "no, not the worst,"

woman. She was a

rtook of it, leaving a small covered dish, which had been prepared for Chester, untouched. His supper was sacred to those little girls. Hungry and worn-out as they were, neither of them even once glanced at it longingly. They were quite content with the dry bread, and

cup of cold water, for the tea must be saved for him and for her. "Childr

d almost heartbroken, for she was not used to suffering like Mary Fuller, and her childish strength yielded more readily. After this

ably miserable. This foreshadowing of evil fastened upon her like a conviction. She felt in the very depths of her being that some solemn event was approaching its consum

bleaux, which stand out from ordinary grouping, like an illustration stamped in strong light a

l, with her lovely head pillowed on her arms; and, through an open door, Jane Chester, in

ts mournful outline, was revea

linging fog. The tide rose slowly lapping the sodden timbers which formed his death-bed, and creeping upwards, inch by inch, like the weltering fold

n pity from the ghostlike shrouds and spars whic

men were to be turned out of office, and the populace were eager to witness the jocose and delicate way in which the New York city fathers decapitated their children. To have witnessed the smiling jests that passed to and fro in the Board, the quiet an

ienced men were taken from almost all the city departments, and cast without occupation upon the world. Men who had toiled in the city's service, for years, for a bare livelihood, were suddenly cast forth to want and penury. It was in the season of a terrible e

soldier-these were the men whom our city fathers were so blandly and pleasantly removing from their field of duty. Was it wonderful, then, that the whole affair seemed quite like pa

n Alderman himself, he always knew when anything peculiarly agreeable to his taste was coming off at the hall. The President of the Upper Board was in splendid spirits, a

d to indulge in wild game and condiments at the cost of ten thousand a year-decanters, through which the wine gleamed red and bright, interspersed here and there with others of a darker tinge and more potent flavor-brandied fruit and rich sweetmeats, all shed their dull sickening fragrance through the tea-room. The flash of glasses in the light; the flash of coarse wit tha

ld have been a pity to dampen their spirits by an idea so at variance with their action. They had consigned at least fifty blameless families t

ul of cigars from a box on the side-board, that he was in excellent spirits. A distinguished guest from the country par

you must go over our institutions-Bellev

ger shook

aid. "I have a terror of the disease; why I saw it stated that half the physicians at your A

y has been very great at Bellevue, especially among th

so painful, "I should suppose it would be difficult to find persons ready to meet almost certain death, as these young men are sure to do

n readily; "it is very disagreeable. Why, sir, the city has paid, already, nearly five h

s absolutely counting, as a subject of regret, the funeral cost attending the death of those brave young men wh

veral aldermen who still lingered at t

ader, leaning over the back of his chair, with a glass of wine in one han

od friend. Bring in the nomination to-morro

e City Hall, the two pictures we have given, were stam