r, and then--

It was over; and through affliction and pain, the young spirit had gone
to rest!

The funeral day was a very sore one to Paul Blackthorn. He would have
given the world to be there, and have heard the beautiful words of hope
which received his friend to his resting-place, but he could not get so
far. He had tried to carry a message to a house not half so far off as
the church, but his knees seemed to give way under him, and his legs
ached so much that he could hardly get home. Somehow, a black suit, just
such as Harold's, had come home for him at the same time; but this could
not hinder him from feeling that he was but a stranger, and one who had
no real place in the home where he lived. There was the house full of
people, who would only make their remarks on him--Miss Hardman (who was
very critical of the coffin-plate), the school-master, and some of the
upper-servants of the house--and poor Mrs. King and Matilda, who could
not help being gratified at the attention to their darling, were obliged
to go down and be civil to them; while Ellen, less used to restraint, was
shut into her own room crying; and Harold was standing on the stairs,
very red, but a good deal engaged with his long hat-band. Poor Paul! he
had not even his usual refuge--his own bed to lie upon and hide his
face--for that had been taken away to make room for the coffin to be
carried down.

There, they were going at last, when it had seemed as if the bustle and
confusion would never cease. There was Alfred leaving the door where he
had so often played, carried upon the shoulders of six lads in white
frocks, his old school-fellows and Paul's Confirmation friends. How Paul
envied them for doing him that last service! There was his mother,
always patient and composed, holding Harold's arm--Harold, who must be
her stay and help, but looking so slight, so boyish, and so young, then
the two girls, Ellen so overpowered with crying that her sister had to
lead her; Mrs. Crabbe with Betsey Hardman, who held up a great white
handkerchief, for other people's visible grief always upset her, as she
said; and besides, she felt it a duty to cry at such a time; and the rest
two and two, quite a train, in their black suits: how unlike the dreary
pauper funerals Paul had watched away at Upperscote! That respectable
look seemed to make him further off and more desolate, like one cut off,
whom no one would follow, no one would weep for. Alfred, who