ith outstretched hands. Could they both
mean to take mine? Did not one of them know what that hand had
done? A mist rose before my eyes, and I fainted.

When my senses returned, I found myself in bed, my aunt by my
side, and a number of restoratives employed to bring me back
from my swoon. I recovered, and the next morning, on awaking
after some hours of feverish and restless sleep, I heard a
noise in the court under my windows.

I rose hastily, and saw the funeral procession moving slowly
from the house across the grounds, and taking its way towards
the village church. The little coffin was carried by four of
the grey-headed servants of the house; my uncle and aunt were
walking on foot beside it, and my cousin and Henry Lovell were
following them. The rest of the servants, among whom was
Julia's nurse, and almost all the inhabitants of the village,
closed the procession. I watched the funeral train till it was
out of sight, and for the first time I forgot myself, for a
few minutes, and my own dreadful share in this calamity, and
thought only of my aunt, and of her misery. I called to mind
too the image of that child, whom I had so often nursed to
sleep in her infancy, whom I had carried in my arms, and held
to my bosom. When I pictured to myself the little body laid in
its narrow grave, and thought how short a time ago life was
strong within it, and that it was _my_ hand that had sent her
to her watery grave, my agony grew so intense that I wonder it
did not kill me, or drive me to some desperate act of madness.
It did not; and pity for myself soon hardened my heart against
the sufferings of others. I ceased to weep for Julia; she was
dead indeed; but was not death a blessing compared to such a
life as mine would be? My aunt had lost her child; but was not
her sorrow as nothing in comparison with mine--mine, who had
made her childless? And now a sudden thought flashed on my
brain. Why was I at home? Why was I alone? Did they suspect
me? Had the master of my fate, the witness of my crime, warned
them to keep the murderess away from the grave of their child?
Was I already become as a monster to them? Did they loathe the
sight of me? Would they send me to prison? or would they turn
me out of their house; and should I fly along dusty roads, and
through dark alleys and crowded streets, and would the mob
follow, as I once read that they followed a woman who was
thought to have murdered her child, and point at me, and ho