Excellent, kind-hearted, just-minded Mr. Hardinge read the funeral
service over the man whom his own father had, in the same humble
edifice, christened. Our neighbourhood has much altered of late
years; but, then, few higher than mere labourers dwelt among us, who
had not some sort of hereditary claim to be beloved. So it was with
our clergyman, whose father had been his predecessor, having actually
married my grand-parents. The son had united my father and mother,
and now he was called on to officiate at the funeral obsequies of the
first. Grace and I sobbed as if our hearts would break, the whole
time we were in the church; and my poor, sensitive, nervous little
sister actually shrieked as she heard the sound of the first clod that
fell upon the coffin. Our mother was spared that trying scene, finding
it impossible to support it. She remained at home, on her knees, most
of the day on which the funeral occurred.
Time soothed our sorrows, though my mother, a woman of more than
common sensibility, or, it were better to say of uncommon affections,
never entirely recovered from the effects of her irreparable loss. She
had loved too well, too devotedly, too engrossingly, ever to think of
a second marriage, and lived only to care for the interests of Miles
Wallingford's children.
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