The old Bond mansion, though threatening to tumble down at every wind-gust, stood just where Rose had left it. The woodbine still festooned its piazza with green garlands in summer, and scarlet and purple berries and leaves in autumn. The tall butternut-trees still stood sentinel before it, the old moss-roofed barn leaned over on one side, like some old veteran whose work was almost done, and the iron-gray horse still took his afternoon-roll on the grass-plot before the door, kicking up his hoofs in the very face of old Time. The brown chickens, once Charley's delight, had become respectable mothers of families, and clucked round after their lordly chanticleer, too happy to escape with half a dozen rebuffs a day from his majesty, and old Bruno, the house-dog, took longer naps on the sunny side of the house, and was less irascible at tin peddlers and stray cattle. The once nicely-kept little garden was overrun with pig-weed and nettles, and the tall, slender hollyhocks swung hither and thither with their flushed faces, like some awkward overgrown school-girl, looking for a place to hide.

It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and yet old Mrs. Bond had not thrown open the kitchen-door opposite the well-sweep, or filled the tea-kettle, or kindled up the kitchen-fire for tea. But look! a strange woman steps out upon the piazza; such a woman as every country village boasts; round, rubicund, check-aproned and spectacled, with very long cap-strings, turtle-shaped feet, thick ankles, and no waist. With her fat, red hands crossed over the place where her waist once was, she steps out on the piazza and looks over her spectacles, this way and that, up and down the road.

The little brook babbles on as usual, and the linden-trees and maples are nodding and whispering to each other across the road; but nothing else is stirring. So Mrs. Simms goes back into the house, and closes the door, and Bruno gives a low growl to signify that all is right, as far as he knows.

Then Mrs. Simms lays her hand on the latch of the sitting-room door, and softly glides in. It is very dark; just a ray of light is shining in through a chink in the shutter. She opens it a little further, and the pleasant afternoon sunlight streams in across the floor—across the pine table—across the coffin—across the placid face of good, dear, old Mrs. Bond.

She has gone to that city where "there is no need of the sun, nor of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."

And now the neighbors drop in gently, one by one. Not one there but can remember some simple act of kindness, which makes the warm tears drop upon the placid face, upon which they are looking for the last time. Mrs. Bond had no kin; and yet every trembling lip there, called her "mother."

Not for thee, "mother," whom the busy world honored not, whom the Lord of Glory crowned; not for thee the careless city sepulture, the jostled hearse, the laughing, noisy, busy crowd. Reverently the prayer is said; now the little, rosy child is lifted up, to see how sweet a smile even icy Death may wear; and now toil-hardened hands, though kindly, bear her gently on to the quiet corner in the leafy church-yard, to which she has so long looked forward. The mold has fallen on her breast, the grave is spaded over, and still they linger, loth to leave even to the fragrant night, the kindly heart which had beat so long responsive to their homely joys and sorrows.

Oh, many such an earth-dimmed diamond shall Jehovah set sparkling in his crown, in the day when he maketh up his jewels.