distant
acquaintances stood about the door, speaking of the good qualities of
the deceased, when their talk was interrupted by the appearance of Mr.
Hooper, still covered with his black veil. It was now an appropriate
emblem. The clergyman stepped into the room where the corpse was laid,
and bent over the coffin to take a last farewell of his deceased
parishioner. As he stooped the veil hung straight down from his
forehead, so that, if her eye-lids had not been closed for ever, the
dead maiden might have seen his face. Could Mr. Hooper be fearful of
her glance, that he so hastily caught back the black veil? A person
who watched the interview between the dead and living scrupled not to
affirm that at the instant when the clergyman's features were
disclosed the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and
muslin cap, though the countenance retained the composure of death. A
superstitious old woman was the only witness of this prodigy.

From the coffin Mr. Hooper passed into the chamber of the mourners,
and thence to the head of the staircase, to make the funeral prayer.
It was a tender and heart-dissolving prayer, full of sorrow, yet so
imbued with celestial hopes that the music of a heavenly harp swept by
the fingers of the dead seemed faintly to be heard among the saddest
accents of the minister. The people trembled, though they but darkly
understood him, when he prayed that they and himself, and all of
mortal race, might be ready, as he trusted this young maiden had been,
for the dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from their faces.
The bearers went heavily forth and the mourners followed, saddening
all the street, with the dead before them and Mr. Hooper in his black
veil behind.

"Why do you look back?" said one in the procession to his partner.

"I had a fancy," replied she, "that the minister and the maiden's
spirit were walking hand in hand."

"And so had I at the same moment," said the other.

That night the handsomest couple in Milford village were to be joined
in wedlock. Though reckoned a melancholy man, Mr. Hooper had a placid
cheerfulness for such occasions which often excited a sympathetic
smile where livelier merriment would have been thrown away. There was
no quality of his disposition which made him more beloved than this.
The company at the wedding awaited his arrival with impatience,
trusting that the strange awe which had gathered over him throughout
the day would now be dispell