should you be spared to old age you will never regret following my advice.  And now I must go to rest, for I am weary, and would sleep.”  Her words awed me deeply; but surely, thought I, grandma cannot die while she seems so well and so like herself.  The words she had spoken so agitated my mind that it was long after I retired to rest, before I slept, and when at length slumber stole over my senses, I dreamed that a being beautiful and bright stood at my bedside, who was like Grandma Adams, only decrepitude and age had all disappeared, and a beauty and brightness, such as I am unable to describe, had taken their place.  A smile rested upon her countenance, as she seemed in my dream, for a moment, to raise her hands above my head in blessing, when she disappeared from my view, and I awoke.  But even while I dreamed, the angel of death came with noiseless step, and severed the last strand in the cord of grandma’s life, and who shall say that her spirit was not permitted to hover for a moment, in blessing, over the youth so dear to her, before taking its final leave of earth.

Upon going to her mother’s room the next morning, my aunt found that she had passed from the sleep of repose to the deeper sleep of death.  Thinking that possibly life still lingered, they immediately summoned the physician, but after one glance at the still features, he addressed my aunt, saying, “Your mother has been a long time spared to you, but she has gone to her rest.”  Even death dealt gently with the aged one whom every one loved.  There was no sign of suffering visible, for as she sank to sleep, even so she died without a struggle, and a smile still seemed to linger upon her aged but serene countenance.  I believe there are few who have not at some period of their life been called to notice the change which a few short hours will bring over a household.  A family may have lived on for years with no break in the home circle, and every thing connected with them have moved on with the regularity of clockwork, when some sudden and unlooked-for event will all at once change the very atmosphere of their home.  Owing to her advanced age, Grandma Adams’ death could hardly be supposed to have been unlooked for, yet so it was.

For so many years had she occupied her accustomed place in the family circle with health seemingly unimpaired, that her children had almost forgotten to realize that a day must come when she would be removed from their midst, and the place which then knew her would know her no more forever.  Very silent and gloomy was the old farm-house, during the days Grandma Adams lay shrouded for the grave.  A hush seemed to have fallen over the darkened rooms, and the soft footsteps of friends and neighbors as they quietly passed in and out, all told the story of death and bereavement.  Funeral preparations were something for which the Widow Green seemed peculiarly adapted, and her presence was ever sought in the house of mourning.  She was a very worthy woman, and much respected by