After the funeral is over, none of the bereaved ones can be seen for a
certain length of time, the period being regulated by a set decree.
They spend the days of their seclusion in consultations with their
_modiste_, in preparing the most fashionable mourning that can be
thought of; in this they seem to agree fully with a certain famous
_modiste_, who declared to a widow, but recently bereaved, that
"fashionable and becoming mourning is _so_ comforting to a person in
affliction."


A ROMANCE OF FIFTH AVENUE.

Hollow as it is, Shoddy in New York has its romances. One of the most
striking of those which occur to us is the story of a family which we
shall designate by the name of Swigg. There will, doubtless, be those
who will recognize them.

If Mr. and Mrs. Ephraim Swigg had a weakness for any thing it was for
being considered amongst that "select and happy few," known to the
outside world as "the upper ten." Mr. Swigg had wealth, and Mrs. Swigg
meant to spend it. She could not see the use of having money if one was
not to use it as a means of "getting into society;" and though she
contented herself with being thus modest in her public expressions, she
was, in her own mind, determined to make her money the power which
should enable her to _lead_ society. She meant to shine as a star of
the first magnitude, before whose glories all the fashionable world
should fall. She would no longer be plain Mrs. Ephraim Swigg, but the
great and wealthy Mrs. Swigg, whose brilliancy should eclipse any thing
yet seen in Gotham. Oh! she would make Fifth Avenue turn green with
jealousy. There was only one difficulty in the way--Mr. Swigg might not