spirit still irradiated it.

Loving hands placed her gently in the shroud and prepared her for the
tomb.

As that quiet twilight hour came on, who can picture the agony of the
bereaved mother's heart? She stole softly into the chamber of death,
and taking the little cold waxen hand in hers, bent fondly over, and
kissed the marble forehead. It was their favorite hour--the one they
ever spent together, and those blue eyes were ever then fixed upon
her, as she read the word of God, repeated infantile hymns, or
murmured the evening prayer. But now those dear eyes were forever shut
on earth, but open to the more exalted beauties of heaven.

As she recalled the past, in that solemn place, she weighed well her
conduct towards her child, and asked herself if there had been aught
to tarnish the purity of that spirit that had just entered the portals
of heaven; and earnestly did she beseech her Heavenly Father to
forgive all that was amiss, and cleanse her from all sin, that she
might be prepared for a reunion in a better world.

It was autumn, when little Mary was placed in the tomb, and all things
spoke of death and decay. It was now the last days of spring, when the
trees had put on their robes of deeper green, and all nature spoke of
a resurrection from the dead, when her little coffin was taken from
the tomb and placed in the hearse, to be buried in the same grave with
her cousin Emma. Emma lay beautiful in death, looking almost like a
thing of life, with a smile still lingering upon her lips, while fresh
half-blown flowers were placed in her icy fingers, and strewed around
the coffin, soon to wither and fade, with that frail child of clay.