“It has become unfashionable in New-York for ladies to attend funerals to the grave. Even the mother may not accompany the little lifeless form of her beloved child beyond the threshold without violating the dread laws of Fashion.”

Are there such mothers? Lives there one who, at Fashion’s bidding, stands back, nor presses her lips to the little marble form that once lay warm and quivering beneath her heart-strings?—who with undimmed eye recalls the trusting clasp of that tiny hand, the loving glance of that vailed eye, the music of that merry laugh—its low, pained moan, or its last fluttering heart-quiver?—who would not (rather than strange hands should touch the babe,) herself robe its dainty limbs for burial?—who shrinks not, starts not, when the careless, business hand would remove the little darling from its cradle-bed, where loving eyes so oft have watched its rosy slumbers, to its last, cold, dreamless pillow?—who lingers not, when all have gone, and vainly strives, with straining eye, to pierce below that little fresh laid mound?—who, when a merry group go dancing by, stops not, with sudden thrill, to touch some sunny head, or gaze into some soft blue eye, that has oped afresh the fount of her tears, and sent to the troubled lips the murmuring heart-plaint, “Would to God I had died for thee, my child—my child?”—who, when the wintry blast comes eddying by, sleeps not, because she cannot fold to her warm breast the little lonely sleeper in the cold churchyard? And oh! is there one, who, with such “treasure laid up in Heaven,” clings not the less to earth, strives not the more to keep her spirit undefiled, fears not the less the dim, dark valley, cheered by a cherub voice, inaudible save to the dying mother? Oh, stony-eyed, stony-hearted, relentless Fashion! turn for us day into night, if thou wilt; deform our women; half clothe, with flimsy fabric, our victim children; wring the last penny from the sighing, overtasked, toiling husband; banish to the backwoods thy country cousin, Comfort; reign supreme in the banquet hall; revel undisputed at the dance;—but when that grim guest, whom none invite—whom none dare deny—strides, with defiant front, across our threshold, stand back, thou heartless harlequin, and leave us alone with our dead: so shall we list the lessons those voiceless lips should teach us—