Once more the lid trembled! there was an upward glance that looked reproachful! Another short sigh! Another! Lustreless and glaring was that once bright eye! Again the physician extended his hand. "Assuredly, gentlemen! vitality hath departed!" A deep--solemn--awful silence--which not a breath disturbed--came over that chamber of death. It seemed as if the insects had ceased their hum--that twilight had suddenly turned to night--that an odour, as of clay, was floating around them, and impregnating the very atmosphere. George took the guitar, whose chords were never more to be woke to harmony by that loved hand, and dashed it to the ground. Ere Delmé could clasp him, he had staggered to the bedside--and fallen over Acmé's still form. And did her frame thrill with rapture? did she bound to his caress? did her lip falter from her grateful emotion?--did she bury his cheek in her raven tresses? No, no! still--still--still were all these! still as death! Chapter IV. Rome. "Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well." * * * * * "The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; An empty urn within her wither'd hands, Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago. The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers; dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress." Undertakers! not one word shall henceforth pass our lips in your dispraise! An useful and meritorious tribe are you! What! though sleek and rosy cheeked, you seem to have little in common with the wreck of our hopes? What! if our ears be shocked by profane jests on the weight of your burden, as you bear away from the accustomed mansion, what _was_ its light and its load star--but what _is_--pent up in your dark, narrow tenement, but-- "A heap, To make men tremble, that never weep." What! if our swimming eye--as we follow those dear--dear remains to their last lone resting place--glance on the heartless myrmidons, who salute the passer by with nods of recognition, and smiles of indifference? What! if, returning homewards--choked with bitter recollections, which rise fantastic, quick, and ill-defined--the very ghosts of departed scenes and years--what if we start as we then perceive you--lightsome of heart, and glib of speech--clustered and smirking, on that roof of nodding plumes--neath which, one short hour since--lay what was dearest to us on earth? Let us not heed these things! for--light as is the task to traders in death's dark trappings; painful and soul-subduing are those withering details to the grieving and heart-struck mourner! We left George lying half insensible by the side of his dead wife.