“Yonder comes the Widow White, and seemingly in a great hurry,” said the niece, anxiously; “I am afraid her patient is worse!”

“He seemed better when I left him last evening, though a little tired with talking,” returned the uncle.  “The man would talk, do all I could to stop him.  I wanted to get but two or three words from him, and he used a thousand, without once using the few I wished most to hear.  A talking man is that Daggett, I can tell you, Mary!”

“He’ll never talk ag’in, deacon!” exclaimed the Widow White, who had got so near as to hear the concluding words of the last speaker—­“He’ll never say good or evil more!”

The deacon was so confounded as to be speechless.  As for Mary, she expressed her deep regrets that the summons should have been so sudden, and that the previous preparation was so small; matters that gave her far more concern than any other consideration.  They were not long left to conjectures, the voluble widow soon supplying all the facts that had occurred.  It appeared that Daggett died in the night, the widow having found him stiff and cold on visiting his bed-side a few minutes before.  That this somewhat unexpected event, as to the time at least, was hastened by the excitement of the conversation mentioned, there can be little doubt, though no comment was made on the circumstance.  The immediate cause of death was suffocation from the effects of suppuration, as so often occurs in rapid consumption.

It would be representing deacon Pratt as a worse man than he actually was, to say that this sudden death had no effect on his feelings.  For a short time it brought him back to a sense of his own age, and condition, and prospects.  For half an hour these considerations troubled him, but the power of Mammon gradually resumed its sway, and the unpleasant images slowly disappeared in others that he found more agreeable.  Then he began seriously to bethink him of what the circumstances required to be done.

As there was nothing unusual in the death of Daggett, the investigations of the coroner were not required.  It was clearly a natural, though a sudden death.  It remained, therefore, only to give directions about the funeral, and to have an eye to the safe-keeping of the effects of the deceased.  The deacon assumed the duty of taking charge of everything.  The chest of Daggett was removed to his house for safe-keeping, the key having been taken from the pocket of his vest, and the necessary orders were given for the final disposition of the body.

The deacon had another serious, and even painful half hour, when he first looked upon the corpse.  There it lay, a senseless shell, deserted by its immortal tenant, and totally unconscious of that subject which had so lately and so intensely interested them both.  It appeared as if the ghastly countenance expressed its sense of the utter worthlessness of all earthly schemes of wealth and happiness.  Eternity seemed