Ella gazed on the dress with some emotion, murmuring to herself,--"Ay, the cloister; it must end there, at last!--Well, prayer and peace!--'tis the calmest fate, after all." But the sale of the instruments of music, and several other small articles, was not executed quite as well. Men were rogues in those times, as at present, though, perhaps, in the improvement of all things, roguery has not been neglected, and the good Lombards took care not to give more than half the value of the goods they purchased. Neither Ella nor good Mistress Trenchard herself knew any better, however; so that the latter thought she had made a very good bargain, and the former was content. Her store was by this means considerably increased; and, a short time before the appointed hour, Ella, with the hostess, set out towards the hospital of St. James, for the sad task that was to be performed that day. I will not pause upon the hours that followed. Dark and sorrowful such hours must ever be; for the dim eyes of mortality see the lamp of faith but faintly, and there is nought else to light our gaze through the obscure vault of death to the bright world of re-union. Put the holy promises to our heart as eagerly, as fondly as we will, how difficult is it to obtain a warm and living image of life beyond this life! How the clay clings to the clay! How the spirit cleaveth to the dust with which it hath borne companionship so long! Strange, too, to say, that we can better realize in our own case the idea of renewed existence, than in the case of those we love. It is comparatively easy to fancy that we who have lived to-day, shall live to-morrow;--that we, who lie down to rest ourselves in sleep and to rise refreshed, shall sleep in death, and wake again renewed. There is in every man's own heart a sentiment of his immortality, which nothing can blot out, but the vain pride of human intellect--the bitterest ashes of the forbidden fruit. But when we see the dearly loved, the bright, the beautiful, the wise, the good, fall, like a withered leaf, into the dark corruption of the tomb--the light go out like an extinguished lamp--and all that is left, all that has been familiar to our living senses, drop into dust and mingle with its earth again, the Saduceean demon seizes on us; and it requires a mighty struggle of the spirit, prayer, patience, resignation, hope, and faith, to win our belief from the dark actuality before us, and fix it on the distant splendour of a promised world to come. They were sad hours for poor Ella Brune; and when they were over, the chambers of the heart felt too dark and lonely for her to admit any thoughts but those of the dead. She sent, therefore, to Mary Markham, to tell her that she was too wobegone to come that day; and, returning to her little chamber at the inn, she sat down to weep, and pass the evening with her memories.