“Where shall we take him, Miss?” he said, stepping towards Margaret.

“Take him?  I-I have no home.  I was sent from my lodging this morning, because I had no money to pay.  Take him anywhere, only let me go to his grave.”

Her pleading voice and look told that life had now but one more step for her.  All was swept away; one hope after another had departed, and she stood alone in darkness.

Clarence Bowen, and his young and elegant wife, were riding in a part of the city whose broad avenues were overarched with trees all radiant with autumnal flames, when a hearse, followed by a single carriage, suddenly attracted the attention of the former.

Why was it that his whole frame shook, and the color left his face?  His wife laughed and chatted by his side, and it was no uncommon sight in those streets to see a funeral pass.  What was it, then, that so thrilled him?  And his wife, too, she became alarmed as she glanced at his altered countenance.

From that lone carriage a face looked forth upon him.  It looked with a vacant gaze.  It was Margaret’s face that, even she knew not why, stared upon Clarence.  An electric chord seemed to connect the two,—­the one with wealth and the vigor of life, the other with poverty and death.

“Why! what has come over you?” asked his wife.  He was wandering again in the green woods, and stood once more by the innocent maiden’s side.  He heard not the voice that spoke to him, and she left him to his thoughts.  The reins slackened in his grasp, and the horse walked at a slow pace, while his wife knew not of the bitter waters that were surging about his soul.  Thus by our side do forms sit daily, while our thoughts glance backward and forward with lightning speed.  At such times, the soul brings from the past its dead, to gaze on their lifeless forms, then turns and looks, with restless longing, towards the unknown, impenetrable future.

“Why! hus’, I declare if you are not too stupid.  I’ll take the reins myself, if you do not arouse.”

She little knew how his soul was aroused then, and how great the conflict that was going on between self and conscience.

He struck the horse lightly, and they passed on while the little funeral cortege went slowly to the burial place for the poor and unknown dead.

It was a simple, and somewhat dreary place, which they reached at last.  There were no cared-for flowers blossoming there, and the grass grew uncut around the nameless graves.

The old man with his spade had just finished his work.  The last shovel-full of earth was thrown out when the hearse and carriage stopped at the gate, and the men bore the coffin slowly in, followed by Margaret and Dawn.

The angels must have wept had they seen the grief-prostrated form beside that grave, when the sound of the earth, as it fell on the coffin, came to the ear of the desolate-hearted Margaret.

Moan after moan broke forth, as they bore, rather than led her away to the carriage.