a half-reclining position, in his well-worn arm-chair, with his feet upon the fender, and in deep revery gazed musingly into the declining fire. Ever and anon it threw up a fitful gleam, that reminded him of some of the many hopes which had arisen on his horizon, and sunk again as soon in darkness. It was Christmas Eve, the eve preceding the great festival of the Nativity. Why, then, was he gloomy and depressed at this hour of triumph to the church he loved? Fain would he have shaken off the sad fantasies which hung like an incubus upon his spirit, but his efforts were in vain. Again and again they returned to the charge, and at every onset they became an ever-increasing, darkening host, resistless in their power. He tried to picture to his imagination those happy homes, which were drawing around them at this festive season, as round a dazzling nucleus, the wanderers who had gone out from them on the voyage of life. He fancied the happy meetings and the glad welcome home; the merry fire would sparkle in the grate, and send forth its ruddiest glow; the cheerful board would be spread; merry hearts and merry voices would hail the coming of the “merry Christmas;” the aged sire, with thin, white locks, would look round with satisfaction upon his children, and his children’s children, as he asked God’s blessing on the festive cheer. Alas! these pictures but restored, with a deeper colouring, his own sense of loneliness; and yielding finally to its resistless sway, he suffered the hours to wax and wane, all heedless of their flight: the surging of the great and limitless ocean on the shore of time, and its rapidly advancing waves, affected him not. He was alone;—alone must he meet his doom.
Still not a sound disturbed the deepening silence, or broke in upon his gloomy revery, but the same monotonous ticking of the venerable time-piece, the hollow moaning of the storm, or the faint falling of the waning embers. He leaned his head wearily upon his hand, and watched them as they sunk and were extinguished one by one. His revery deepened; silence was becoming almost audible; a torpor was stealing over him; but now, as his gaze was fixed steadfastly upon the declining fire, a light, thin vapour seemed to rise from beneath it, and curling gently upward and over it, par-
