“’Like a kind angel, whispers peace,
     And smooths the bed of death.’”

Rightly viewed, the closing scenes in the life of this estimable woman are not less solemn, not less impressive, than those of that memorable day, when, with all the awful ceremonials of offended justice and the stern pageantries of war, her lover died in the full glare of noonday before the eyes of assembled thousands.  He had played for a mighty stake, and he had lost.  He had perilled his life for the destruction of our American empire, and he was there to pay the penalty:  and surely never, in all the annals of our race, has a man more gallantly yielded up his forfeited breath, or under circumstances more impressive.  He perished regretted alike by friend and foe; and perhaps not one of the throng that witnessed his execution but would have rejoicingly hailed a means of reconciling his pardon with the higher and inevitable duties which they owed to the safety of the army and the existence of the state.  And in the aspect which the affair has since taken, who can say that Andre’s fate has been entirely unfortunate?  He drank out the wine of life while it was still sparkling and foaming and bright in his cup:  he tasted none of the bitterness of its lees till almost his last sun had risen.  When he was forever parted from the woman whom he loved, a new, but not an earthly mistress succeeded to the vacant throne; and thenceforth the love of glory possessed his heart exclusively.  And how rarely has a greater lustre attached to any name than to his!  His bones are laid with those of the wisest and mightiest of the land; the gratitude of monarchs cumbers the earth with his sepulchral honors; and his memory is consecrated in the most eloquent pages of the history not only of his own country, but of that which sent him out of existence.  Looked upon thus, death might have been welcomed by him as a benefit rather than dreaded as a calamity, and the words applied by Cicero to the fate of Crassus be repeated with fresh significancy,—­“Mors dortata quam vita erepta.”

The same year that carries on its records the date of Andre’s fall witnessed the death of a second Honora Edgeworth, the only surviving daughter of Honora Sneyd.  She is represented as having inherited all the beauty, all the talents of her mother.  The productions of her pen and pencil seem to justify this assertion, so far as the precocity of such a mere child may warrant the ungarnered fruits of future years.  But with her parent’s person she received the frailties of its constitution; and, ere girlhood had fairly opened upon her way of life, she succumbed to the same malady that had wrecked her mother.

* * * * *

WE SHALL RISE AGAIN.

We know the spirit shall not taste of death: 
Earth bids her elements,
“Turn, turn again to me!”
But to the soul, unto the soul, she saith,
“Flee, alien, flee!”