t.

An hour or more must have passed, when, putting the glass over her lips
again, I saw no mark on it. I held it closer and closer. I dulled it
accidentally with my own breath, and cleaned it. I held it over her
again. Oh, Mary, Mary, the doctor was right! I ought to have only
thought of you in heaven!

Dead, without a word, without a sign--without even a look to tell the
true story of the blow that killed her! I could not call to anybody, I
could not cry, I could not so much as put the glass down and give her
a kiss for the last time. I don't know how long I had sat there with
my eyes burning, and my hands deadly cold, when Sally came in with the
shoes cleaned, and carried carefully in her apron for fear of a soil
touching them. At the sight of that--

I can write no more. My tears drop so fast on the paper that I can see
nothing.

March 12th. She died on the afternoon of the eighth. On the morning of
the ninth, I wrote, as in duty bound, to her stepmother at Hammersmith.
There was no answer. I wrote again; my letter was returned to me this
morning unopened. For all that woman cares, Mary might be buried with
a pauper's funeral; but this shall never be, if I pawn everything about
me, down to the very gown that is on my back. The bare thought of Mary
being buried by the workhouse gave me the spirit to dry my eyes, and go
to the undertaker's, and tell him how I was placed. I said if he would
get me an estimate of all that would have to be paid, from first
to last, for the cheapest decent funeral that could be had, I would
undertake to raise the money. He gave me the estimate, written in this
way, like a common bill:

A walking funeral complete............Pounds 1 13 8
Vestry.......................................0 4 4
Rector.......................................0 4 4
Clerk........................................0 1 0
Sexton.......................................0 1 0
Beadle.......................................0 1 0
Bell.........................................0 1 0
Six feet of ground...........................0 2 0

------ Total Pounds 2 8 4

If I had the heart to give any thought to it, I should be inclined to
wish that the Church could afford to do without so many small charges
for burying poor people, to whose friends even shillings are of
consequence. But it is useless to complain; the money must be raised
at once. The charitable doc