There was no violence of sorrow in the house that night; but there
were aching hearts, and one heart so sore that it seemed that no cure
for its anguish could ever reach it. "He has always been with me,"
Mrs. Arabin said to her husband, as he strove to console her. "It was
not that I loved him better than Susan, but I have felt so much more
of his loving tenderness. The sweetness of his voice has been in my
ears almost daily since I was born."

They buried him in the cathedral which he had loved so well, and
in which nearly all the work of his life had been done; and all
Barchester was there to see him laid in his grave within the
cloisters. There was no procession of coaches, no hearse, nor was
there any attempt at funereal pomp. From the dean's side door, across
the vaulted passage, and into the transept,--over the little step
upon which he had so nearly fallen when last he made his way out of
the building,--the coffin was carried on men's shoulders. It was
but a short journey from his bedroom to his grave. But the bell had
been tolling sadly all the morning, and the nave and the aisles and
the transepts, close up to the door leading from the transept into
the cloister, were crowded with those who had known the name and
the figure and the voice of Mr. Harding as long as they had known
anything. Up to this day no one would have said specially that Mr
Harding was a favourite in the town. He had never been forward enough
in anything to become the acknowledged possessor of popularity. But,
now that he was gone, men and women told each other how good he had
been. They remembered the sweetness of his smile, and talked of
loving little words which he had spoken to them,--either years ago
or the other day, for his words had always been loving. The dean and
the archdeacon came first, shoulder to shoulder, and after them came
their wives. I do not know that it was the proper order for mourning,
but it was a touching sight to be seen, and was long remembered in
Barchester. Painful as it was for them, the two women would be there,
and the two sisters would walk together;--nor would they go before
their husbands. Then there were the archdeacon's two sons,--for the
Rev. Charles Grantly had come to Plumstead on the occasion. And in
the vaulted passage which runs between the deanery and the end of
the transept all the chapter, with the choir, the prebendaries, with
the fat old chancellor, the precentor, and the minor canons down