of
a virtuous and loving wife--which had crowned his life for all these
wonderful years.

As it neared one o'clock, I could see my ancient friend the Abbey clock
with not a wrinkle in his old face, staring at me through the bare
Abbey trees. I began to feel rather anxious. I went into the deserted
office; and thence, none forbidding, ensconced myself behind the
sheltering bank blinds.

The crowd had scarcely moved; a very honest, patient, weary crowd dense
in the centre, thinning towards the edges. On its extremest verge,
waiting in a curricle, was a gentleman, who seemed observing it with a
lazy curiosity. I, having like himself apparently nothing better to
do, observed this gentleman.

He was dressed in the height of the mode, combined with a novel and
eccentric fashion, which had been lately set by that extraordinary
young nobleman whom everybody talked about--my Lord Byron. His
neckcloth was loose, his throat bare, and his hair fell long and
untidy. His face, that of a man about thirty--I fancied I had seen it
before, but could not recall where,--was delicate, thin, with an
expression at once cynical and melancholy. He sat in his carriage,
wrapped in furs, or looked carelessly out on the scene before him, as
if he had no interest therein--as if there was nothing in life worth
living for.

"Poor fellow!" said I to myself, recalling the bright, busy, laughing
faces of our growing up lads, recalling especially their father's--full
of all that active energy and wise cheerfulness which gives zest to
existence; God forbid any man should die till he has lived to learn
it!--"poor fellow! I wish his moodiness could take a lesson from us at
home!"

But the gentleman soon retired from my observation under his furs; for
the sky had gloomed over, and snow began to fall. Those on the
pavement shook it drearily off, and kept turning every minute to the
Abbey clock--I feared it would take the patience of Job to enable them
to hold out another quarter of an hour.

At length some determined hand again battered at the door. I fancied I
heard a clerk speaking out of the first-floor window.

"Gentlemen"--how tremblingly polite the voice was!--"Gentlemen, in five
minutes--positively five minutes--the bank will--"

The rest of the speech was drowned and lost. Dashing round the street
corner, the horses all in a foam, came our Beechwood carriage. Mr.
Halifax leaped out.

Well might the crowd divide for him--well mi