learned the whole of the dreadful truth. She was in fainting fits for
hours, one succeeding another, and then her grief found tongue. There
was no term of endearment that the heart of woman could dictate to her
speech, that was not lavished on the lifeless clay. She called the
dead "her Miles," "her beloved Miles," "her husband," "her own darling
husband," and by such other endearing epithets. Once she seemed as if
resolute to arouse the sleeper from his endless trance, and she said,
solemnly, "_Father_--dear, _dearest_ father!" appealing as
it might be to the parent of her children, the tenderest and most
comprehensive of all woman's terms of endearment--"Father--dear,
dearest father! open your eyes and look upon your babes--your precious
girl, and noble boy! Do not thus shut out their sight for ever!"

But it was in vain. There lay the lifeless corpse, as insensible as if
the spirit of God had never had a dwelling within it. The principal
injury had been received on that much-prized scar; and again and again
did my poor mother kiss both, as if her caresses might yet restore her
husband to life. All would not do. The same evening, the body was
carried to the dwelling, and three days later it was laid in the
church-yard, by the side of three generations of forefathers, at a
distance of only a mile from Clawbonny. That funeral service, too,
made a deep impression on my memory. We had some Church of England
people in the valley; and old Miles Wallingford, the first of the
name, a substantial English franklin, had been influenced in his
choice of a purchase by the fact that one of Queen Anne's churches
stood so near the farm. To that little church, a tiny edifice of
stone, with a high, pointed roof, without steeple, bell, or
vestry-room, had three generations of us been taken to be christened,
and three, including my father, had been taken to be buried.
Excellent, kind-hearted, just-minded Mr. Hardinge read the funeral