If ever grief was in any house it was there on this occasion, when the death of Mrs. Lupton became known. All the household, as well as those who were not of it, flocked round the bed whereon she was laid, to weep in truth and earnest heart over the corpse of one who had won all love from all but him who should have loved her most--though from him she had won it even at last when such love became useless. And if ever the living felt truly that the dead should be strewn with flowers--“sweets to the sweet,”--if ever it were felt that a funeral garment ought to be decked with the choicest offerings of the garden, and the melancholy grave be made beautiful,--assuredly was it felt then. Not one but felt that a friend was lost,--that an emptiness existed in the bosom unknown before, and never to be remedied; while some gave loose to that expression of grief which tells us that all hope was gone with the departed, and that the world had nothing more left in it for man to love, or by man to be beloved. Amongst those latter must be numbered Mr. Lupton himself. The words of his dying wife had sunk deep into his soul--too deep ever again to be eradicated. Misery had made him wise. Or, as Shakspeare has it-- “Being gone,-- The hand would call her back that pushed her on.” But it was now too late. Nature's fiat had been pronounced, and man was left to reconcile himself to her decree as best he might. I shall not linger over this scene of death, save just to record how, during some days, the body lay in solemn state in a certain room always appropriated to that purpose; during which time it was looked upon by many eyes that grew dim as they gazed, and spoken of by many a voice that faltered and failed in the stifling effort to record the kindnesses and virtues of the dead. Mr. Lupton, it was observed, frequently haunted that room alone. There lay a charm in it that he could not resist, and one that evidently day by day gained power upon his mind. Amongst other signs of his having become in some respects a changed man, it was remarked that he gave strict orders that the private sitting room of the departed lady should not under any circumstances be disturbed, but that everything should remain exactly in the state in which she had last left it. And so it remained. The very work-table stood open as when last she had sat there; the snow-white muslin was thrown negligently upon it; and there also lay the opened book with which, in some perhaps painful moment, she had tried to beguile her weary heart, and to forget her own too real sorrows in the imaginary joys described of another.