"All aboard!"

As the cars glided out of the lighted depot into the darker streets, leading to the utter gloom of the open country, two gentlemen settled themselves into their seats with audible sighs of satisfaction.

"Homeward bound!" said the elder, a man of fifty, hale in figure and face, although his hair was almost white.

"For which let us be thankful!" responded his companion, heartily. "This has been a long week to me, although a busy one - longer than a fortnight would have been at home."

"You may blame the twin babies for that," said the other, smiling indulgently at his impatience.

"Bless them for it, you mean - the boys and their mother. A man may well be impatient to get back to such treasures as are mine."

He was a fine-looking fellow, manly in every gesture and tone, six-and-twenty years old, the son-in-law of the gentleman beside him, and had been for a year his law-partner.

"You are right. Emma is a good girl - a noble woman ; her mother's own daughter for sense, discretion, and warmth of heart. There is nothing frivolous or shallow about her. Let me see - the boys are almost three months old, are they not?"

"Just three months to-morrow. It is marvellous what strength the thought of them puts into my heart and arm. The cunning little rascals ! Emma writes that they grow every day. She is sure they will recognize me on my return. I suppose you experienced papas, who have outlived the novelty of this sort of thing, amuse yourselves vastly at our expense; but it pleases me to believe what she says. They are very bright, healthy in mind and body, as the children of such a mother should be. They and I are blest beyond comparison in having her for the angel in our house. Should it please God to spare our lives" .The sentence rested on the shocked air, incomplete, never to be finished. One terrific jar! - a crashing-and splintering, and reeling, an awful sense of falling down, down, through utter darkness, over and over, then a blow that ended everything - surprise, consternation, fearful questioning - in blank, black silence.

When the debris of the telescoped cars was cleared away, the two men were found lying, as they had sat, side by side. The younger was dead. The elder moved and groaned as he was lifted from the wreck. Papers upon their persons established their identity beyond a doubt.

Early next morning a telegram was brought into a pretty dressing-room, where the sunshine, peering through the vine-leaves about the window, made dancing shadows on the floor, laughed, and leaped, and flashed ill reflection from the water in a China bath, set in the middle of the chamber. In this splashed and crowed two baby-boys, one held by the mother, the other by the grandmother, and between these knelt two younger women - all four in delighted worship of the tiny cherubs. There was a breathless hush as the youngest of the party sprang up to seize the envelope, and tore it open.

"Collision!" said the missive. "Frederick Cor-win killed instantly. Philip Hitler badly injured. Both will be sent on in next train."

In this ghastly shape came disaster to the long-exempt household. Life and the world had dealt so benignly and bountifully with them heretofore, that they had insensibly learned to look upon their possession of health, love, and happiness as assured for years and years to come. Emma's marriage had removed her from them but a couple of blocks, and all concurred in the opinion that this was a charming variety upon their former estate.

"How did we ever get along without Fred's and Emma's house to run into? It is as good as having two homes," the girls often said among themselves.

When the twins came - bouncing, healthy boys - the excitement and joy in one house equalled that in the other. It seemed now, indeed, that they could ask nothing more of Heaven; that the brimming cup of bliss was mantled all over with rose-leaves. And when "Papa and Fred" were obliged to be absent from their homes for a week, in attendance upon the doings of a court a hundred miles away, Emma and her babes were transferred with much ceremony and rejoicing to her mother's care; given up to the petting and admiration of the doating aunties without reservation, beyond Fred's earnest entreaty that they would not kiss the boys away to skeletons before he returned, and a threat to have them protected by copper sheathing from the fate of St. Peter's brazen toe.

Dear Fred! the merry, handsome, stalwart brother; their only one, - who was never to jest with them again; never again to hold wife and babes in his embrace. Imogen and Blanche mourned for him only less passionately than did she who had proudly and gladly borne his name. Poor wife ! she was denied the satisfaction of hearing that her name had been the last in his thoughts and speech; that the loyal heart had never beat more lovingly for her than in its latest throbbings; for weeks passed before Mr. Hiller could speak at all, and then the disjointed utterances of the palsied tongue told nothing beyond the terrible fact that the brain had sustained serious, it might be irreparable, damage. A paralytic cripple he would remain until the day of his death, although this half-life might be prolonged for years, pronounced the best medical authorities in the land, summoned without regard to distance or expense, by the agonized wife.

Stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, the four women sat them down together in the mother's room, a month after the double bereavement, and took mournful but deliberate counsel together. Their affairs were not at a desperate pass, as they already knew. There was the house in which they lived, free of mortgage, which would bring at least thirty thousand dollars in the market; ten thousand dollars in bank stocks and other securities - solid, paying investments, and five thousand dollars' worth of real estate - chiefly unim-proved lots in a growing part of the city, that might be very valuable in time, if they could be held and the taxes paid. Fred had invested four thousand dollars in the latter kind of property, and his life was insured for ten thousand more. If Emma were to sell everything - furniture, lots and all - she would have just seventeen thousand dollars with which to support herself, to rear and educate her boys. By living upon the interest of the life-insurance fund, and paying taxes on the real-estate for some years, she might double the little fortune bequeathed to her, without reserve, by her husband's will.