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of the bell announced the approach of the funeral. They were the obsequies of poverty, with which pride had nothing to do. A coffin of the plainest materials, without pall or covering, was borne by some of the villagers. The sexton walked before, with an air of cold indifference. There were no mock mourners in the trappings of affected woe: but there was one real mourner, who feebly tottered after the corpse. It was the aged mother of the deceased—the poor old woman whom I had seen seated on the steps of the altar. She was supported by a humble friend, who was endeavouring to comfort her. A few of tho neighbouring poor had joined the train, and some of tho children of tho village were running hand in hand, now shouting with unthinking mirth, and now pausing to gaze, with childish curiosity, on the grief of the mourner.
As the funeral train approached the grave, tho parson issued from the church porch, arrayed in the surplice, with prayer book in hand, and attended by the clerk. The service, however, was a mere act of charity. The deceased had been destitute, and the surviver pennyless. It was shuffled through, therefore, in form, but coldly and unfeelingly. The well fed priest moved but a few steps from the church-door; his voice could scarcely be heard at the grave, and never did I hear the funeral service, that sublimo and touching ceremony, turned into such a frigid mummery of words.
I approached the grave. The coffin was placed on the ground. On it wero inscribed the name and age of tho deceased— "Georgo Somers, aged 26 years." The poor mother had been assisted to kneel down at the head of it. Her withered hands were clasped, as if in prayer; but I could perceive by a feeble rocking of the body, and a convulsive motion of tho lips, that she was gazing on the last relics of her son, with the yearnings of a mother’s heart.
