to know that the last earthly wish has been confided to your fulfilment, the last expressions of earthly affection have been your own. The eyes closing to their last cold sleep, rested upon you, and were glad to rest; and your prayers were the latest music in the weary ear. It is some comfort to think that you sacrificed even your own sorrow in the beloved presence; and the thousand sad, slight offices, are remembered with such melancholy tenderness. But all this was denied to Henrietta, and hers was a nature to feel their privation most acutely; sensitive and affectionate, she exaggerated their omission with all the bitterness of self-reproach.
At length the day of the funeral came; and, till the coffin was carried to the hearse, Lady Marchmont never felt that she was quite parted from her uncle. She saw him, even as she had last gazed upon him, pale, cold, and awful; but still he was there. The coffin was to her like a shrine; all that she held most dear and most precious was within its dark and silent sanctuary. She sat in the room; she saw them bear it away: with one
