y another time;
we must now accompany her remains to their last sad home, and place
these flowers upon her coffin."

They walked on mournfully, two and two, and Henri followed them with an
interest that he could not account for, or define. The coffin advanced,
preceded by the priests, bearing torches that were obscured by the
silvery light of the moon; it was carried by six men, and among them it
was easy to recognise Guillaume, by his profound sorrow; for, to Henri's
great surprise, he alone wept. The more aged men who followed the
corpse, the one even next it, and who, of course, was the father, or
nearest relative of the deceased, had, like the rest, merely a composed
and serious countenance, undisfigured by any great affliction. The body
was lowered into the grave; the officiating minister made a brief, and
somewhat cold, discourse on the frailty of life; the young females
afterwards came forward, and each threw her wreath of flowers on the
coffin; and then chanted some rhymes.

The grave was then about to be filled up; the noise of the earth, in
falling, resounded on the coffin, and Henri shuddered. The crowd
gradually dispersed; Guillaume and Isabelle alone remained beside the
tomb; Henri approached it, and Isabelle observing him, with a forced
smile, said, "Did you know her? I have seen you follow the funeral train
with apparent interest, and now I behold you in tears; are you a
relation, friend, or only even a native of the same place?" Henri
listened to these questions with great surprise; "I scarcely understand
you," he at length replied; "I am merely a traveller; but the deceased
was, doubtless, _your_ friend?"--"Yes, my best, my dearest friend;
yet our friendship was doomed to be of very short continuance. I was
not at all acquainted with her until, about three months ago, she
came to reside with my father, who is a physician, and to whose care
her relations, when aware of her forlorn state, confided her." "Her
relations," remarked Henri, "did not seem to be much affected; they
appeared, indeed, quite resigned to their loss." "Her relations!"
replied Isabelle, "she had none here; she was a stranger, and my father
attended as chief mourner; he lamented her loss, but Marie was not his
daughter, although I _myself_ loved her as a sister." "Marie!" she
was called Marie! but what was her family-name? Often shall I think of
her unhappy destiny. "Marie was only a name that she adopted, and we
called her, because