In the house of Mr. and Mrs. Blandeville all was distraction, despair, and self-reproach. The illness and subsequent death of a beloved and amiable child laid heavy at their hearts, and overwhelmed them like the sudden bursting of a torrent; for, though prudence forbade them to unite their daughter to a man whose conduct threatened her with many sorrows, at the moment they wished to put an end to so unpromising an union, they had no idea that any fatal consequences would have attended the separation, and they too late regretted not having granted Narford's request of being permitted to see their daughter at a more early stage of her illness.--Mr. Blandeville drooped under his own painful reflections, his wife felt more than she either could or wished to express, and the younger part of the family were for a time inconsolable. The tale spread rapidly abroad, and in all its various shapes excited the compassion of those who heard it. Lucy had been as generally beloved as admired, and Narford, who had once appeared deserving of contempt, was now the object of pity. Such are the rapid changes which take place in the human mind. Mrs. Blandeville, unknown to the rest of the family, sent several times to make inquiries after the unhappy Narford. The accounts she received were as various as the melancholy changes which succeeded each other. He was sometimes in a state of actual distraction,--at others in a sad and silent despondency the most determined and alarming, refusing to take his food, or to hold conversation with any one. At length the day for the interment of Lucy arrived. The procession, sad and slow, was followed by almost every inhabitant of the town and adjoining villages. A solemn dirge was sung as they went along, and a number of young maidens joined in the chorus. Flowers were strewn into and around the grave, as emblematical of the charming flower that like themselves was untimely cut down, and doomed like them to wither and to die.