But above the crackle and the roar a woman’s voice rang out like a bell:—­

“We’re going home, to die no more.”

A child’s notes quavered in the chorus.  From sealed and unseen graves, white young lips swelled the glad refrain,—­

“We’re going, going home.”

The crawling smoke turned yellow, turned red.  Voice after voice broke and hushed utterly.  One only sang on like silver.  It flung defiance down at death.  It chimed into the lurid sky without a tremor.  For one stood beside her in the furnace, and his form was like unto the form of the Son of God.  Their eyes met.  Why should not Asenath sing?

“Senath!” cried the old man out upon the burning bricks; he was scorched now, from his gray hair to his patched boots.

The answer came triumphantly,—­

  “To die no more, no more, no more!”

“Sene! little Sene!”

But some one pulled him back.

Night-Watches.

Keturah wishes to state primarily that she is good-natured.  She thinks it necessary to make this statement, lest, after having heard her story, you should, however polite you might be about it, in your heart of hearts suspect her capable not only of allowing her angry passions to rise, but of permitting them to boil over “in tempestuous fury wild and unrestrained.”  If it were an orthodox remark, she would also add, from like motives of self-defence, that she is not in the habit of swearing.

Are you accustomed, O tender-hearted reader, to spend your nights, as a habit, with your eyes open or shut?  On the answer to this question depends her sole hope of appreciation and sympathy.

She begs you will understand that she does not mean you, the be-ribboned and be-spangled and be-rouged frequenter of ball and soiree, with your well-taught, drooping lashes, or wide girl’s eyes untamed and wondering, your flushing color, and your pulse up to a hundred.  You are very pretty for your pains,—­O, to be sure you are very pretty!  She has not the heart to scold you, though you are dancing and singing and flirting away your golden nights, your restful, young nights, that never come but once,—­though you are dancing and singing and flirting yourselves merrily into your grave.  She would like to put in a plea before the eloquence of which Cicero and Demosthenes, Beecher and Sumner, should pale like wax-lights before the sun, for the new fashion said to be obtaining in New York, that the soiree shall give place to the matinee, at which the guests shall assemble at four o’clock in the afternoon, and are expected to go home at seven or eight.  That would be not only civilized, it would be millennial.

But Keturah is perfectly aware that you will do as you will.  If the excitement of the “wee sma’ hours ayont the twal” prove preferable to a quiet evening at home, and a good, Christian, healthy sleep after it, why the “sma’ hours” it will be.  If you will do it, it is “none of her funerals,” as the small boy remarked.  Only she particularly requests you not to insult her by offering her your sympathy.  Wait till you know what forty-eight mortal, wide-awake, staring, whirring, unutterable hours mean.