church clocks had struck three; the crowds of gentlemen returning to
business, after their early dinners, had disappeared within offices and
warehouses; the streets were clear and quiet, and ladies were venturing
to sally forth for their afternoon shoppings and their afternoon calls.

Slowly, slowly, along the streets, elbowed by life at every turn, a
little funeral wound its quiet way. Four men bore along a child's
coffin; two women with bowed heads followed meekly.

I need not tell you whose coffin it was, or who were those two
mourners. All was now over with little Frank Hall: his romps, his games,
his sickening, his suffering, his death. All was now over, but the
Resurrection and the Life.

His mother walked as in a stupor. Could it be that he was dead! If he
had been less of an object of her thoughts, less of a motive for her
labours, she could sooner have realized it. As it was, she followed
his poor, cast-off, worn-out body as if she were borne along by some
oppressive dream. If he were really dead, how could she be still alive?

Libbie's mind was far less stunned, and consequently far more active,
than Margaret Hall's. Visions, as in a phantasmagoria, came rapidly
passing before her--recollections of the time (which seemed now so
long ago) when the shadow of the feebly-waving arm first caught her
attention; of the bright, strangely isolated day at Dunham Park, where
the world had seemed so full of enjoyment, and beauty, and life; of
the long-continued heat, through which poor Franky had panted away his
strength in the little close room, where there was no escaping the hot
rays of the afternoon sun; of the long nights when his mother and she
had watched by his side, as he moaned continually, whether awake or
asleep; of the fevered moaning slumber of exhaustion; of the pitiful
little self-upbraidings for his own impatience of suffering, only
impatient in his own eyes--most true and holy patience in the sight
of others; and then the fading away of life, the loss of power, the
increased unconsciousness, the lovely look of angelic peace, which
followed the dark shadow on the countenance, where was he--what was he
now?

And so they laid him in his grave, and heard the solemn funeral words;
but far off in the distance, as if not addressed to them.

Margaret Hall bent over the grave to catch one last glance--she had
not spoken, nor sobbed, nor done aught but shiver now and then, since
the morning; but now her wei