age, and about to quit Lady Pallgrave's assembly. Immediate medical
assistance was procured, and her ladyship was carried to her own house,
in Queen Street, Mayfair. But she never rallied, or, we believe, spoke,
after the first fatal seizure, and sank at eleven o'clock last evening,
The deceased, Louisa Joanna Gaunt, widow of Frederic, first Earl of Kew,
was daughter of Charles, Earl of Gaunt, and sister of the late and
aunt of the present Marquis of Steyne. The present Earl of Kew is her
ladyship's grandson, his lordship's father, Lord Walham, having died
before his own father, the first earl. Many noble families are placed in
mourning by this sad event. Society has to deplore the death of a lady
who has been its ornament for more than half a century, and who
was known, we may say, throughout Europe for her remarkable sense,
extraordinary memory, and brilliant wit.'"

CHAPTER LV. Barnes's Skeleton Closet

The demise of Lady Kew of course put a stop for a while to the
matrimonial projects so interesting to the house of Newcome. Hymen blew
his torch out, put it into the cupboard for use on a future day,
and exchanged his garish saffron-coloured robe for decent temporary
mourning. Charles Honeyman improved the occasion at Lady Whittlesea's
Chapel hard by; and "Death at the Festival" was one of his most
thrilling sermons; reprinted at the request of some of the congregation.
There were those of his flock, especially a pair whose quarter of the
fold was the organ-loft, who were always charmed with the piping of that
melodious pastor.

Shall we too, while the coffin yet rests on the earth's outer surface,
enter the chapel whither these void remains of our dear sister departed
are borne by the smug undertaker's gentlemen, and pronounce an elegy
over that bedizened box of corruption? When the young are stricken down,
and their roses nipped in an hour by the destroying blight, even the
stranger can sympathise, who counts the scant years on the gravestone,
or reads the notice in the newspaper corner. The contrast forces
itself on you. A fair young creature, bright and blooming yesterday,
distributing smiles, levying homage, inspiring desire, conscious of her
power to charm, and gay with the natural enjoyment of her conquests--who
in his walk through the world has not looked on many such a one; and, at
the notion of her sudden call away from beauty, triumph, pleasure; her
helpless outcries during her short pain; her vai