wn a few steps we descended, under a low, plastered arch,
which glittered green from the moisture of the earth. In the wall were
built deep niches, four on either side, and six of them were already
filled. Before them stood slabs of marble, with inscriptions telling of
those who had fallen asleep. The four servants placed the coffin they
had brought on their shoulders in the seventh niche; then the aged
retainer clasped his hands, and with simple devotion repeated the Lord's
Prayer; the other three men softly murmured after him: "Amen. Amen."

Then they left us to ourselves.

Grandmother all this while had without a word, without a movement, stood
in the depth of the crypt, holding our hands within her own; but when we
were alone, in a frenzy she darted to the coffined niche and flung
herself to the ground before it.

Oh! I cannot tell what she said as she raved there. She wept and
sobbed, flinging reproaches--at the dead! She scolded, as one reproves a
child that has cut itself with a knife. She asked why he did _this_. And
again she heaped grave calumny upon him, called him coward, wretch,
threatened him with God, with God's wrath, and with eternal
damnation;--then asked pardon of him, babbled out words of conciliation,
called him back, called him dear, sweet, and good; related to him what a
faithful, dear, loving wife waited at home, with his two sweet
children,--how could he forget them? Then with gracious, reverent words
begged him to turn Christian, to come to God, to learn to believe, to
hope, to love; to trust to the boundless mercy; to take his rest in the
paths of Heaven. And then she uttered a scream, tore the tresses of her
dove-white hair, and cursed God. Methought it was the night of the Last
Judgment.

Every fire-breathing monster of the Revelation, the very disgorging of
the dead from the rent earth, were as naught to me compared with the
terror which that hour heaped upon my head.

'Twas hither we had brought father, who died suddenly, in the prime of
life. Hither we had brought him, in stealth, and slinking; here we had
concealed him without any Christian ceremony, without psalm or toll of
bell; no priest's blessing followed him to his grave, as it follows even
the poorest beggar; and now here, in the house of the dead, grandmother
had cursed the departed, and anathematized the other world, on whose
threshold we stand, and in her mad despair was knocking at the door of
the mysterious country as sh