A greater contrast than that of the two ladies then seated together in the long, low, dusky room, it were not easy to imagine.

I am greatly puzzled to think what conscious good in life Mrs.
Bevis enjoyed--just as I am puzzled to understand the eagerness with which horses, not hungry, and evidently in full enjoyment of the sun and air and easy exercise, will yet hurry to their stable the moment their heads are turned in the direction of them.

Is it that they have no hope in the unknown, and then alone, in all the vicissitudes of their day, know their destination?
Would but some good kind widow, of the same type with Mrs.Bevis, without children, tell me wherefore she is unwilling to die! She has no special friend to whom she unbosoms herself--indeed, so far as any one knows, she has never had any thing of which to unbosom herself.

She has no pet--dog or cat or monkey or macaw, and has never been seen to hug a child.

She never reads poetry--I doubt if she knows more than the first line of _How doth_.