When consciousness, after a lapse of some days, at length returned, she saw her father and mother hanging over her—but Fitzhenry, her adored Fitzhenry, was for ever shrouded in the close, cold habitation of death! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VIII. Yet still, thou mourner, o’er the death-bed stand, Still honour, as thou canst, the breathless clay, Still bring thy flowers, and strew with pious hand, And weep behind the bier in slow array; And raise the stone, inscribe the record kind, And all thy heart’s vain tenderness reveal, And guard the dust, in awful hope resigned, And bow to heaven, that formed thee thus to feel. _Extract from a Letter from the Rev. E. Pelham, to Sir George Pelham, minister at Vienna._ ——“You ask me if I can tell you any thing of Lady Fitzhenry. Being some little time ago on a visit to a friend at Poole, and anxious to be able to give you some more satisfactory account than mere common report, I resolved to drive over one Sunday, and attend divine service at the parish church of Arlingford, as I was told that she was generally there to be seen; and, hearing she lived perfectly retired, I did not like to intrude upon her with the offer of a visit. “You know it is now nearly a twelve-month since the death of poor Fitzhenry. The pew belonging to the Arlingford family, the pulpit, and communion table, are all still covered with black, and with the escutcheons and arms of the Fitzhenrys. When the church-bell had done ringing, Lady Fitzhenry, with her father and mother, came into the gallery. A deep black veil at first hid her face and nearly her whole person; but the church growing very hot, she at length put it aside. “Had I not previously known who it was, I certainly should not have recognised her. There is no trace of the laughing eyes, of the dimpled cheek, of the fresh gay young countenance, which I was acquainted with. Perhaps it was partly owing to contrast and to the quantity of black by which she was surrounded, but I thought I had never seen so pale a face. Still, though she has already lost much of the fresh beauty of youth, there is a charm in her faded sadness—an air of sentiment over her whole person, that more than compensates. Her hair was parted back on her marble-white forehead; and the only thing about her that was not black, was a gold chain, to which was hung a small watch. I am thus particular, for I know you wish for particulars—and I certainly never before paid such attention to the minutiæ of a woman’s dress.