hope of a joyful resurrection." And then followed a lofty strain of panegyric which we will not repeat.
"He hoped for a resurrection," said Thick, after perusing attentively the inscription, "and a resurrection he shall have right speedily, or there are no such things as doctors." He then commenced unearthing the body with a skill which denoted a practised arm,—beginning at the head-stone, and opening about one third of the length of the grave; his comrade watching like a blood-hound at a short distance, to give the alarm in case of intrusion or discovery.
In less than an hour the operator had reached the coffin, and by means of the bar had broken the lid, dragged out the corpse by the small opening he had thus made, thrust it into the sack, and filled the grave, being careful that it preserved as much as possible its original appearance; then placing the sack upon his shoulder, they left the cemetery as stealthily as they had entered.
CHAPTER V.
Death.
At the time of the guilty amours of Eugene and Cecil, and one door from the apartment they occupied, a young female was dying. Sin had done its worst, and the eye of a connoisseur could not tell, or even guess what she had been, from beholding what she was. The room was wretched beyond description, and in it there was not an article of comfort, not even a chair.
The couch on which she lay, was too dirty and coarse to support the feeble limbs of a dying woman. The tattered covering was too scant to subserve its purpose—warmth and decency—while the straw beneath had probably been used for many months. An expression of hopelessness and dread unutterable was pictured on her ghastly face. The skin seemed to be drawn downward from the eye towards the chin, giving the face a horribly lengthened appearance.—About the external canthus of the eye was the only exception to this, and here it was corrugated in a frightful manner, showing a course of dissipation and vice. One of her emaciated hands with its bony fingers was clenched in her hair, while the other was moving painfully about the throat, which was discolored and swollen. Her teeth were black and offensive, and her mouth, partly open, disclosed foul ulcers within. That disease which so frequently marks the finale of such a life, was ending her days. Her voice was gone, and when she attempted to speak the sounds died away in inaudible and hollow murmurs in the throat. She would perhaps have prayed, but those lips, polluted and weak as
