shall mention.

"When I attended her about seven in the evening, she had hardly spoken
to me, when she started, and a blush overspread her sweet face on
hearing, as I also did, a sort of lumbering noise upon the stairs, as if
a large trunk were bringing up between two people. 'Blunderers!' said
she. 'They have brought in something two hours before the time. Don't be
surprised, sir, it is all to save _you_ trouble.'

"Before I could speak in came Mrs. Smith. 'Oh, madam,' said she, 'what
have you done?'

"' Lord have mercy upon me, madam,' cried I, 'what have you done?' For
she, stepping at the instant to the door, Mrs. Smith told me it was a
coffin. Oh, Lovelace that thou hadst been there at the moment! Thou, the
causer of all these shocking scenes! Surely thou couldst not have been
less affected than I, who have no guilt as to _her_ to answer for.

"With an intrepidity of a piece with the preparation, having directed
them to carry it into her bed-chamber, she returned to us. 'They were
not to have brought it till after dark,' said she. 'Pray excuse me, Mr.
Belford; and don't you be concerned, Mrs. Smith. Why should you? There
is nothing more in it than the unusualness of the thing. Why may we not
be as reasonably shocked at going to the church where are the monuments
of our ancestors, as to be moved at such a sight as this.'

"How reasonable was all this. But yet we could not help being shocked at
the thoughts of the coffin thus brought in; the lovely person before our
eyes who is in all likelihood so soon to fill it."