A LITTLE black-bordered billet reached us yesterday, and a cloud has settled down upon all of us, for it brought the news of the death of the Maiden Aunt.

She died in the night, by the side of the sea, which she always loved, and the last sounds she heard were its waves moaning on the beach, as her own life ebbed away on the strand of death; and, after that, such music as Raphael's St. Cecilia would sing, or the angels who hover around his Madonnas.

She died by the side of the church-yard, in which for thirty years the daisies have bloomed over him, to whom she promised always to be loyal, and for whom she always wore the forget-me-not in the silken floss of her hair, in eternal remembrance. The forget-me-not is now quite withered, for memory has blossomed into realization, and hope is lost in possession, and the snow now covers them side by side here, and, for all that, they are side by side There.

Her life was so hidden from the world, that few knew her except the children and the house-dog, and some birds which were pets, and they mourn her loss. The children miss her, and it is something to be missed by the children, for it shows that however the body may have been tossed about and weather-beaten in the tempest of life, the soul has preserved itself in the repose of childhood. The dog misses her, and goes about the house moaning, and stirs uneasily in his sleep as if dreaming of her, just as Florence Dombey's dog did, in her and his first sorrow. And it is something to be missed by a dog, for it argues a great deal of humanity. The birds miss her, and have ceased their songs; and it is something to be missed by the birds, for no ungracious souls care for them or their songs.

The heavens were mantled with grey, and the air was full of snow, and the black harbor waves moaned on the bar like a knell, when they buried her by the side of him who took away all her sunshine when he died, and left her life in the shadow. She sent some little remembrances to us—a curl of her hair to Aurelia; a bit of blue ribbon, full of memories, to Celeste; a turquoise ring, which he had worn, to Blanche; and the faded forget-me-not to Mignon. For the Maiden Aunt was rich only in memories.

She did not die like a saint, for she was not a saint; neither like a sinner, for she was not a sinner; but like a true woman, full of courage and dignity, contented to cross the River, because she knew she would find him waiting for her on the other side, and wherever he went she would go.

The Maiden Aunt always regarded human nature as something very sacred and sublime, and she regulated herself by that regard. I remember she used to tell me that she believed there was no nature so bad, but that it had a chord which would vibrate to goodness, provided the finger was skilled to find and touch that chord; and that there was no soul so barren, but that somewhere in it a flower was blooming. She did not believe that the divine spark which God implanted in each nature could ever be utterly quenched, however its light might be concealed in life's confusion and chaos. She had faith in His omnipotence.

She had her faults and her frailties, which proved her humanity. She was intensely human. The dead were to her as the living, and he who had gone before her, I think was always with her. He was only absent on a journey, and would send for her when the time came, and she waited in patience. Her knowledge, like the knowledge of the most of us, was bounded by this life; and she used to say that, when her thoughts reached that boundary where knowledge ceased, her thoughts ceased also. Consequently, she gave her work to this life, and her love to him, whom she kept in this life, although absent; and, notwithstanding all her faults and her frailties, I think, in the presence of the great sorrow which had eclipsed her inward being, the angels at the Celestial Gate did not question her—for the faults and the frailties were of the body, and under the snow with his, and never soiled the spirit, which had been sanctified and purified by the grief which she had carried as a burden at her heart. I think the angels recognized her at once, as they recognized the Beatrices who died—the one in glory, the other in agony—or that Irmgard, who found repose on the Heights.

Our lives are twofold. There is the active, every-day life in ourselves, and the life which we live in sleep, and is made up of the tangled web of dreams. One of her lives was in herself, hidden to the outward gaze, and yet manifesting its presence in a thousand graceful ways. The other, which no one ever saw or knew but herself, went even beyond the realm of dreams, and in the place left vacant in her heart, by the absence of that life, there was eternal snow.

What was beautiful a thousand years ago, is beautiful now, and if there were saints a thousand years ago, there must be saints now, although their record may be unchronicled, save in some human heart. I think the Maiden Aunt was as worthy of canonization as Ursula or Agatha, and that in this common, homely human life, there are many worthy of it, whose saintliness will not be known until that day when we are all brought upon a common level. The homeliest humanity is full of contests as fierce as those Tamerlane waged; full of deeds as glorious as those achieved by the gods and demigods we set up for worship. They are never known to the world, for they have no historians or singers to chronicle them, but when they come to be known as they will be one day, we shall be surprised to find that they were the real victors.

December 12, 1868.