been light some time," thought Emily; and shame and regret, at having wasted in fear and folly hours so sacred, so precious, smote upon her inmost heart. Seated in an armchair, with her back to the light, her companion was soon again sleeping; and Emily, kneeling beside the coffin, looked for the last time on her uncle.

Deep as may be the regret, though the lost be the dearest, nay, the only tie that binds to earth, never did the most passionate grief give way to its emotion in the presence of the dead. Awe is stronger than sorrow: there is a calm, which, though we do not share, we dare not disturb the chill of the grave is around them and us. I have heard of the beauty of the dead it existed in none that I have seen. The unnatural blue tinge which predominates in the skin and lips; the eyes closed, but so evidently not in sleep-in rigidity, not repose; the set features, stern almost to reproof; the contraction, the drawn shrunk look about the nose and mouth; the ghastly thin hands,—Life, the animator, the beautifier-the marvel is not, how thou couldst depart, but how ever thou couldst animate this strange and fearful tene

ment.

Is there one who has not at some time or other bent down-with that terrible mingling of affection and loathing impulse, each equally natural, each equally beyond our control-bent down to kiss the face of the dead? and who can ever forget the indefinable horror of that touch ?-the coldness of snow, the hardness of marble felt in the depth of winter, are nothing to the chill which runs through the veins from the cold hard cheek, which yields no more to our touch icy and immovable, it seems to repulse the caress in which it no longer has part.

Emily strove to pray; but her thoughts wandered in spite of every effort. Prayers for the dead we know are in vain; and prayers for ourselves seem so selfish. The first period is one of such mental confusion-fear, awe, grief, blending and confounding each other; we are, as it were, stunned by a great blow. Prayers and tears come afterwards.

She was roused from her reverie by words whose sense she comprehended not, but mechanically she obeyed the nurse, who led her into the adjoining room. It was her uncle's dressing closet, and his clothes were all scat

tered about.

There is no wretchedness like the sight of these ordinary and common ob

jects that these frail, worthless garments should thus outlast their wearer! But the noise in the next room became distinctheavy steps, suppressed but unfamiliar a clink as of workman's tools and then the harsh grating sounds: they were screwing down the coffin. She threw herself on her knees; she buried her head in the cushions of the chair in vain; her sense of hearing was acute to agony; every blow struck upon her heart; but the stillness that followed was even worse. She rushed into the next room: it was emptythe coffin was gone! The sound of wheels, unnoticed till now, echoed from the paved courtyard the windows only looked towards the garden; but the voices of strangers, from whose very thought she shrank, prevented her stirring. Slowly one coach after another drove off; she held her breath to catch the last sound of the wheels. All in a few minutes was silence, like that of the grave to which they were journeying.

Emily suddenly remembered that one of the windows commanded a turn in the road.

She

opened it just in time to see the last black coach wind slowly through the boughs, so green, so sunny: that, too, past—and Emily sunk back, as if the conviction had but just reached her, that her uncle was indeed dead!

CHAPTER III.

"He seemed

To common lookers on like one who dreamed
Of idleness in groves Elysian. Ah, well-a-day!
Why should our young Endymion pine away ?"

KEATS.

"The fateful day passed by; and then there came
Another and another."-MARCIAN COLONNA.

"Do you know this Lord Etheringhame, of whom I hear such romantic histories?" said Adelaide Merton to her brother.

"Not I. There's devilish good shooting in his woods; but they say he won't let a creature come near his grounds he can't bear to see any body."

66

How very interesting!"

"A great fool."

"It is a noble place."

"He is not married, Adelaide."

"Do you know," said the lady, reining her horse closer to her brother's, with whom, faute