ht cause injurious agitation.

However, he did not go further than Margaret's bedroom where he sat
hour after hour his eyes fixed upon her, as she continued in a state
bordering on insensibility. He took little notice of anything else,
and hardly spoke. There were heavy sighs now and then, but Richard and
Flora, one or other of whom were always watching him, could hardly tell
whether to ascribe them to the oppression of sorrow or of suffering.
Their great fear was of his insisting on seeing his wife's face, and it
was a great relief that he never alluded to her, except once, to desire
Richard to bring him her ring. Richard silently obeyed, and, without a
word, he placed it on his little finger. Richard used to read the Psalms
to him in the morning, before he was up, and Flora would bring little
Daisy and lay her by his side.

To the last moment they dreaded his choosing to attend the funeral, and
Flora had decided on remaining at home, though trembling at the thought
of what there might be to go through. They tried to let him hear nothing
about it, but he seemed to know everything; and when Flora came into
Margaret's room without her bonnet, he raised his head, and said, "I
thought you were all going."

"The others are--but may I not stay with you and her, papa?"

"I had rather be alone, my dears. I will take care of her. I should wish
you all to be there."

They decided that his wishes ought to be followed, and that the patients
must be entrusted to old nurse. Richard told Flora, who looked very
pale, that she would be glad of it afterwards, and she had his arm to
lean upon.

The grave was in the cloister attached to the minster, a smooth green
square of turf, marked here and there with small flat lozenges of stone,
bearing the date and initials of those who lay there, and many of them
recording former generations of Mays, to whom their descent from the
headmaster had given a right of burial there. Dr. Hoxton, Mr. Wilmot,
and the surgeon, were the only friends whom Richard had asked to be
with them, but the minster was nearly full, for there was a very
strong attachment and respect for Dr. and Mrs. May throughout the
neighbourhood, and every one's feelings were strongly excited.

"In the midst of life, we are in death--" There was a universal sound
as of a sort of sob, that Etheldred never disconnected from those words.
Yet hardly one tear was shed by the young things who stood as close as
they could round the