living creature to me. I paid homage to his empery. I could have prayed to him. But the end must come; and with it that last long look, that " never was the last"-and yet which was the last one knew not how * * * * * Catherine-my poor Catherine !-mine almost more now than ever,-she started when, on descending into the hall, she saw what had preceded us. * * * * * Throughout that sadly-soothing Litany, I was enabled to maintain a deeper composure than I had even dared to hope for. At the time I felt thankful; now, alas! I recognise that it was because all was over. It was but the return of that habitual self, that strong second nature of deep sadness which other griefs had forced on me. The new sorrows of this visit seem to have revived for awhile my old life, with all its blessing of undoubting love, but to grant one a glimpse, and then snatch it away for ever. But I was in much fear for my dear sister, as she stood in agony by the open vault, now entreasured with the remains of all from whom we could claim a return of affection. Who that has hung over that yawning pit of hidden love, but has sighed for the close of that "death called life, which us from life doth sever?" Ah, who would refuse to read the mockery of life in that record of age and death inscribed on the coffin lid! those gleaming letters that were the last we saw of what the darkness of the grave swallowed? Sixty-eight years past. The mind went back at the sight to recal the hour that began the tale of her days on earth-the joyous whisper through the house, a child is born to us-the thankful silence of the elders-the joyful scream of the little ones-the happy announcement to friends-the welcome to the stranger and all the other heart-cheering circumstances that accompanied the commencement of a voyage which must end in that dark haven! Sixty-eight years more and I shall be as-as what I then saw. Why is it so difficult to contemplate the thought with any steady realization? If, as now I can do, and cannot but do, I register and compare what I have been called on to endure, I feel, alas! how unspeakably less miserable it is to lose the dead than to be severed from the living. The bitterness of death, in such death as hers, passes with death itself. She is taken to her rest, and we would rejoice at it. We have been humbled by the hand of God, and we bow beneath it. But oh, that life-in-death-separation from the living! the exile bitterness of that self-accusation; the agony of that reproach of others for their own dear preciousness. If it had been from any else, we had sustained it: if it had been from God, we had submitted to it: but from thee I * go about saying to myself, "The week before last, and she was yet with us;" but the words return dully on my ears. With ever-increasing clearness I see it—without present pleasure there are no pleasures in Memory. "To see thee no more, and to hear thee no more;" all that was left unsaid to be unsaid for ever! "Orecchie mie, l'angeliche parole Suonano in parte ov'è chi meglio intende. Ov' è colei ch'esercitar vi sole." CHAPTER XXVIII. Oph. You are merry, my lord. Ham. Who, I? Oph. Ay, my lord. Ham. Oh, your only jigmaker!-What should a man do but be merry? FOR thus Edward spoke in answer to a remark of Catherine's, about three weeks after the occurrences he had recorded in the last chapter. He looked cheerful; something like his old smile had won its way back, as he sat down to the hitherto unopened pianoforte, to chant Mozart's "Non più andrai" with animation. "And why is it," thought Catherine to herself? "Can it be only that he has to-day seen Lucy Ledyard ?" This was all, and enough for all. The calm and unwavering endurance of grief is so rare a disposition for disappointment to assume, that the mode and circumstance of its different manifestations may often be a surprise to witnesses. Forgetful, perhaps, of the manner in which he had borne that other first shock, Edward's bearing now surprised Catherine, and yet she need not have so felt it. Violently as she had been affected by the loss of that |