Nyc

ne to live fashionable, it is their chief wish to be laid in the grave in the same style. Undertakers at fashionable funerals are generally the sexton of some fashionable church, that, perhaps, of the church the deceased was in the habit of attending. This individual prescribes the manner in which the ceremony shall be carried out, and advises certain styles of family mourning. Sometimes the blinds are closed and the gas lighted. The lights in such cases are arranged in the most artistic manner, and every thing is made to look as "interesting" as possible. A certain fashionable sexton always refuses to allow the female members of the family to follow their dead to the grave. He will not let them be seen at the funeral at all, as he says "it's horridly vulgar to see a lot of women crying about a corpse; and, besides, they're always in the way." 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 be willing to furnish the sum necessary for the accomplishment of this grand purpose: still she would attempt it, trusting that when he had fairly entered upon the joys of fashionable life, he would be too much charmed with them to begrudge "the paltry sums" necessary to continue them. Mr. and Mrs. Swigg had not always enjoyed such advantages. There was a time when the lady might have been seen in a market stall, where her robust beauty drew to her crowds of admirers of doubtful character. She had made a wise choice, however, and after looking coldly upon these swains, had bestowed her hand upon Ephraim Swigg, a rising young butcher, who sold his wares in the same market. To be sure, Mr. Swigg was not a beauty, nor even as handsome as the plainest of the admirers she had cast aside; but he had a more substantial recommendation than any of them. He was the owner of a lucrative business, and had several thousands laid by in hard cash. So, influenced by these considerations, Miss Polly Dawkins became Mrs. Ephraim Swigg. In justice to her, be it said, she made a good wife. He was equally devoted, and they were genuinely happy. They had one child, a daughter, who, as she grew up, bade fair to ripen into a very pretty woman. They prospered steadily, and matters went on smoothly with them until the rebellion startled the men of means with a vague fear for the safety of their worldly possessions; then Mr. Swigg, reckoning over his property, found himself possessed of a handsome fortune. He watched the course of affairs anxiously until the great disaster at Bull Run, and then, like a good patriot, set to work to see how he could help the country out of its difficulties. Mr