Suffice it, that this dreadful blow effected what nothing
else on earth could have effected in the mind of General Stanley.
Humbled to the dust, even the arrival of the once despised owner of
Lexley Park did not drive him from the house. He asked his pity--he
asked his pardon. Beside the coffin of his daughter he expressed all
the compunction a generous-hearted and broken-hearted man could
express; and all he asked in return, was leave to lay her poor head in
the grave of her ancestors.

No one opposed his desire. The young widower had not as much
consciousness left as would have enabled him to utter the negative
General Stanley seemed prepared to expect; and as to his father, about
to abandon Lexley for ever, to what purpose erect a family vault in a
church which neither he nor his were ever likely to see again?

To the chapel at Stanley Manor, accordingly, were the mother and child
removed. The General wrote expressly to forbid his son-in-law and
Selina returning to the Hall, on pretence of sustaining him in his
affliction. He _chose_ to give way to it; he _chose_ to be alone with
his despair.

Never shall I forget the day that mournful funeral procession passed
through the village! Young and old came forth weeping to their doors
to bid her a last farewell; even as they used to come and exchange
smiles with her, in those happy days when life lay before her,
bright--hopeful--without a care--without a responsibility. I had
intended to pay him the same respect. I meant, indeed, to have
followed the hearse, at an humble distance, to its final destination.
But when I rose that morning a sudden weakness came upon me, and I was
unable to quit my room. I, so strong, so hardy, who have passed
through life without sickness or doctor, was as powerless that day as
an infant.

It was from the good rector, therefore, I heard how the General (on
whom, in consequence of the precarious condition of the afflicted
husband, devolved the task of chief mourner) sustained his carriage to
perform with dignity and propriety his duty to the dead. As he
followed the coffin through the churchyard, crowded by his old
pensioners--many of them praying on their knees as it passed--his
step was as firm and his brow as erect as though at the head of his
regiment. It was not till all was over--the mournful ceremony done,
the crowd dispersed, the funeral array departed--that having descended
into the vault, ere the stone was rolled to the door of t