"I will enter the house with you," said Walter:—and the two men walked in, and in a few moments they stood within the chamber of death.
The face of the deceased had not yet suffered the last withering change. Her young countenance was hushed and serene; and, but for the fixedness of the smile, you might have thought the lips moved. So delicate, fair, and gentle were the features, that it was scarcely possible to believe such a scion could spring from such a stock; and it seemed no longer wonderful that a thing so young, so innocent, so lovely, and so early blighted, should have touched that reckless and dark nature which rejected all other invasion of the softer emotions. The Curate wiped his eyes, and prepared to utter, with a quivering but earnest voice, his prayer for the dead; and Walter, whose heart was opened to the weaker and kinder feelings, knelt by the bedside, and felt his own eyes moist, as he echoed the Christian hope and the holy supplication. That scene had in its pathos something more impressive and
