“‘This is a beautiful subject we have to-night, Glenn,’ observed one of my friends, as we approached the dead body.  He then threw up the white cloth, and exposed the corpse, the head being still obscured.  A breathless silence reigned, while all gazed at the lifeless form in admiration.  She was a perfect Venus!  Not having been wasted and shrivelled by disease, the symmetry of her lineaments was preserved in all the exactness of life and health.  Her bust was full, plump, and the skin of the most exquisite whiteness, except where it had been marred by the fire that caused her death.  Her limbs surpassed any model I had ever beheld, round and tapering, smooth and white as ivory.  Her ankles were most admirably turned, and her feet of the smallest dimensions.  Her handsome and gently swelling arms were covered with a slight gauze of short, dark hair, through which the snowy whiteness of her skin was displayed to greater advantage.  Her hands were extremely delicate, and indicated that she had been accustomed to ease and luxury.

“I was requested to open her breast and exhibit to the students the formation and functions of the heart.  She was lying on her back, on a long narrow table, around which the students stood gazing at her fair proportions.  Some reflected in sorrow that so beautiful and lovely a being should die and be conveyed to the dissecting-room; while others joked and laughed in a light unfeeling manner.  When about to make an incision with the sharp glittering steel in my hand, for the first time since I had graduated, I confessed that my nerves were too much affected by the sight of the subject to proceed, and I begged my friends to be patient a few minutes, during which I would doubtless regain my accustomed composure.

“‘What was her name?’ I inquired of the friend who had accosted me on my entrance.

“‘Haven’t you heard?’ said he, smiling—­’I thought you all knew her.  Nearly every person in the city has heard of her, for she was the most celebrated and notorious “fallen angel” in the city—­celebrated for her unrivalled beauty and many triumphs, and notorious for her heartless deceit and reckless disregard of her own welfare.  She has led captive many an unguarded swain by a passing smile in the street, and then unceremoniously deserted him to join some drunken and beastly party in an obscure and degraded alley.’

“‘Her name—­what was her name?’ I again asked, once more taking up the knife, my nerves sufficiently braced by the above recital.

“‘Anne R____,’ he replied; ‘I thought,’ he continued, ’no one could be
ignorant of her name, after hearing a description of her habits.’

“‘All of us,’ I continued, rallying, ’are not familiar with the persons and names of the “fallen angels” about town.  But let us look at her face.’  Saying this, I endeavoured to lift the white cloth from her head, but finding that the resurrectionist had tied a cord tightly round the muslin enclosing her neck and head, I desisted.