autumnal morning, just seven months from the date of my last visit to
High Holborn, I chanced to be turning down Saint Giles's Church, on my
way to--Hospital. I had nothing to render me more than usually pensive;
no new vexations, no sudden pecuniary embarrassment; yet it so happened,
that on this particular morning I felt a weight at my heart, and a cloud
on my brain, for which I could in no way account. As I passed along
Broad Street, I made one or two bold attempts to rally. I stared
inquisitively at the different passers by, endeavouring, by a snatch at
the expression of their faces, to speculate on the turn of their minds,
and the nature of their occupations; I then began to whistle and hum
some lively air, at the same time twirling my glove with affected
unconcern; but nothing would do; every exertion I made to appear
cheerful, not only found no answering sympathy from within, but even
exaggerated by constrast my despondency. In this condition I reached
Saint Giles's Church. A crowd was assembled at the gate opposite its
entrance, and presently the long surly toll of the death-bell--that
solemn and oracular memento--announced that a funeral was on the eve of
taking place. The funeral halted at the entrance gate, where the coffin
was taken from the hearse, and and thence borne into the chancel. This
ceremony concluded, the procession again set forth towards the home
appointed for the departed in a remote quarter of the church-yard. And
now the interest began in reality to deepen. As the necessary
preparations were making for lowering the coffin into earth, the
mourners--even those who had hitherto looked unmoved--pressed gradually
nearer, and with a momentary show of interest, to the grave. Such is the
ennobling character of death.

The preparations were by this time concluded, and nothing now remained
but the last summons of the sexton. At this juncture, while the coffin
was being lowered into its resting place, my eyes, accidentally, it may