ed her last days. His daughter did not follow. She knew she could do nothing to console him. God even cannot, sometimes. Let the mourner remain alone with the Divine Comforter: He will give him peace and strength to bear the sorrow. Bianca entered her own room. She sat by the window; a book lay open on the table; her eye fell upon it; Inez was very fond of it; it was Tennyson’s In Memoriam. The first lines Bianca came upon were
Come, let us go, your cheeks are pale,
But half my life I leave behind
Methinks my friend is richly shrined,
But I shall pass; my work will fail.
Yet in these ears till hearing dies,
One set slow boll will seem to toll
The passing of the sweetest soul
That ever looked with human eyes.
I hear it now, and o’er and o’er,
How often had she heard Inez repeat these lines in her soft silvery voice!
I hear it now, and o’er and o’er,
Eternal greetings to the dead;
And ‘Ave, Ave, Ave’, said,
‘Adieu, adieu’ for evermore!
She closed the book and looked out of the window. Where was Inez now? Beneath the cold earth:—She so delicate was now sleeping quietly in the wild churchyard with nothing between her and the inclement sky, but a thin oak-plank, and the newly turned sod. Bianca’s heart 'se serra' convulsively at the thought. Why should she so strong be housed from the weather in a warm, lighted room, while pale Inez lay cold and stiff in the lonely grave-yard? She looked with drear despair at the drizzling snow and rain. Her large eyes were dilated; she opened the window (it was a glass door) and stept out into the garden. She smiled, it was a strange, peculiar smile, 'I am like you now Inez dear,' murmured she, and sat down on the soaked
