Lights and Shadows of London Life. 185 



and in a few hours he was in her darkened chamber. Stern as the 

 lesson ever is, taught in this latest school of mortality, there are cir- 

 cumstances when the philosophy it conveys is appalling. Upon a 



couch whose appearance but too clearly denoted the restless agony 

 of its wretched tenant, lay the emaciated, distorted frame of her, 

 whose career of cruelty and bitter neglect had never totally weaned 

 the ill-requited affections of a son. The sight of that son, so long 

 and so cruelly slighted, at the moment of his entering the room had 

 an effect all but fatal. All of life which apoplexy had spared 

 from annihilation was torn with a convulsion at which the soul shud- 

 dered ; with a spasmodic action she seemed to require something 

 should be done, and the anguish with which she discovered that her 

 desire was not understood was enough to daunt the stoutest heart. 

 At length Chalcroft seemed to gather her meaning ; he signed to 

 those in the apartment that they should leave it, and she appeared to 

 regain something like composure upon being left alone with her son. 

 It was an awful interview, that in which he stood, as it were, before 

 the spirit of his mother. All that death could claim had already been 

 made its prey; the dead it was that essayed to address the quick; 

 the immortal quailed in presence of the mortal ! Thickly, indis- 

 tinctly, and clotted with the dews of death, came the disjointed sylla- 

 bles, but they had conveyed enough to chain his attention to every 

 muttered articulation. A name had reached him, and he could hear 

 the pulsations of his heart and temples beat aloud in the breathless 

 silence with which he sought to catch aught connected with it. 

 Another and a last desperate but fruitless effort at speech did the 

 dying woman struggle with : it was a fearful strife, life ebbed fast, 

 voice was gone, her glazed eyes were set in the sockets, and a con- 

 vulsive motion of the hand was the only sign of animation that 

 remained. Yet consciousness was not gone with the capability of 

 giving it expression ; perhaps I may fail in conveying my meaning, 

 but I have seen the reality of that which I would describe, and it is 

 the most terrible feature of a most appalling disease. For a moment 

 there was that bright flickering beam that so generally precedes the 

 total extinction of life's " brief candle." Again the name of his 

 early companion was gasped out he bent his head over the dying 

 sufferer, convulsively came the disjointed syllables, " she is your 

 sister" his mother WBS dead! 



(Tb be continued.) 



