on her lips the faint smile with which she had uttered her last
"Good-night." The young girls from the school looked at her, one after
another, and passed on, sobbing, carrying in their hearts the picture
that would be with them all their days. The great people of the place
were all there with their silent sympathy. The lesser kind of gentry,
and many of the plainer folk of the village, half-pleased to find
themselves passing beneath the stately portico of the ancient
mansion-house, crowded in, until the ample rooms were overflowing. All
the friends whose acquaintance we have made were there, and many from
remoter villages and towns.

There was a deep silence at last. The hour had come for the parting
words to be spoken over the dead. The good old minister's voice rose out
of the stillness, subdued and tremulous at first, but growing firmer and
clearer as he went on, until it reached the ears of the visitors who
were in the far, desolate chambers, looking at the pictured hangings and
the old dusty portraits. He did not tell her story in his prayer. He
only spoke of our dear departed sister as one of many whom Providence in
its wisdom has seen fit to bring under bondage from their cradles. It
was not for us to judge them by any standard of our own. He who made the
heart alone knew the infirmities it inherited or acquired. For all that
our dear sister had presented that was interesting and attractive in her
character we were to be grateful; for whatever was dark or inexplicable
we must trust that the deep shadow which rested on the twilight dawn of
her being might render a reason before the bar of Omniscience; for the
grace which had lightened her last days we should pour out our hearts in
thankful acknowledgment. From the life and the death of this our dear
sister we should learn a lesson of patience with our fellow-creatures in
their inborn peculiarities, of charity in judging what seem to us wilful
faults of character, of hope and trust, that, by sickness or affliction,