_Death-bed Superstitions._--When a child is dying, people, in some parts of
Holland, are accustomed to shade it by the curtains from the parent's gaze;
the soul being supposed to linger in the body as long as a compassionate
eye is fixed upon it. Thus, in Germany, he who sheds tears when leaning
over an expiring friend, or, bending over the patient's couch, does but
wipe them off, enhances, they say, the difficulty of death's last struggle.
I believe the same poetical superstition is recorded in _Mary Barton, a
Tale of Manchester Life_.