idle people were standing about
that she could not bear to mingle with them. Had it been only the Holt
vassalage, either their feeling would have been one with her own, or they
would have made way for her, but there were some pert nursery maids
gaping about with the children from Beauchamp, whence the heads of the
family had been absent all the winter and spring, leaving various nurses
and governesses in charge. Honora could not encounter their eyes, and
went to the vicarage to send Mr. Henderson, and finding him absent,
walked over sundry fields in a vain search for Brooks. Rain came on so
violently as to wet her considerably, and to her exceeding mortification,
she was obliged to relinquish her superintendence, either in person or by
deputy.

However, when she awoke early and saw the sun laughing through the
shining drops, she decided on going down ere the curious world was astir,
to see what had been done. It was not far from six, when she let herself
out at the porch, and very like a morning with Humfrey, with the
tremulous glistening of every spray, and the steamy fragrance rising
wherever the sun touched the grass, that seemed almost to grow visibly.
The woods were ringing with the song of birds, circle beyond circle, and
there was something in the exuberant merriment of those blackbirds and
thrushes that would not let her be sad, though they had been Humfrey's
special glory. The thought of such pleasures did not seem out of
keeping. The lane was overhung with bushes; the banks, a whole wealth of
ferns, climbing plants, tall grasses, and nettles, had not yet felt the
sun and were dank and dreary, so she hurried on, and arriving at the
clerk's door, knocked and opened. He was gone to his work, and sounds
above showed the wife to be engaged on the toilette of the younger
branches. She called out that she had come for the keys of the church,
and seeing them on the dresser, abstracted them, bidding the good woman
give herself no trouble.

She paused under the porch, and ere fitting the heavy key to the lock,
felt that strange pressure and emotion of the heart that even if it be
sorrow is also an exquisite sensation. If it were mournful that the one
last office she could render to Humfrey was over, it was precious to her
to be the only one who had a right to pay it, the one whom he had loved
best upon earth, round whom she liked to believe that he still might be
often hovering--whom he might welcome by and by