It was my last vigil by Hortense's bed-side--for, when morning came
with its glad sun-beams, her spirit had passed away--there was no
struggle, no pain, only a sinking to rest, a falling to sleep; a quiet
transit from life's worrying turmoil, into the hallowed peace of
death!

With a handful of fresh violets, and a cross upon her breast, a lily,
white and newly-gathered, in her hand, the emblem of that purity in
which her eternal sleep had overtaken her, she lay within the quiet
precincts of her little room.

Many tears were shed, and many sighs were heaved about her! So young,
so fresh a flower in life's great garden, lying before us with its
broken stem!

We bade her our last farewell, and resigned her to the grave; I, who
had loved her with all the intimate intensity of a glowing friendship,
kissed her cold lips again and again, and turned away from her,
forever. Mr. Dalton wiped the moisture from his eyes, as he stooped
over the coffin lid, and touched her brow, fondly but reverently, with
his trembling lips, Mdme. de Beaumont fell upon the prostrate figure
of her darling, and in their last mortal embrace, swooned away! Bayard
leaning slowly over her, with a face almost as pallid as her own,
muttered in feeble sobs--"My angel! my guardian angel!" and with one
long, lingering kiss, the last he could ever give her, he turned from
her, baptized anew in her self-abnegating love, a conscious and
contrite penitent.

When the funeral was over and peace and quiet were in a measure
restored to the agitated hearts of her mother and Bayard, I made my