When the breakfast was ready, Martha went to call Hugh and Antonio and all the others, to come to the table. They all came except Ellen. She remained in the bedroom to watch with the body of her aunt. Her heart was full of trouble. As she sat by her aunt's bed-side, she thought bitterly of her loss, and she looked forward with many anxious forebodings to the future. She felt as if her happiness was gone forever. She loved her father and mother, it was true; but her aunt had seemed to be her best and truest friend; and now that her aunt was gone from her forever, she felt alone and desolate. After breakfast Antonio went away upon the snow-shoes to see if he could obtain some assistance from the neighbors, in relation to the funeral. The storm, he said, appeared to have abated. The clouds looked thin, and at one time he could almost see the sun. In about two hours he returned, bringing with him two or three men, all upon snow-shoes; for the snow which had fallen was so deep that any other mode of traveling was impossible. The preparations for the funeral went on during the day. The third day the coffin came. It was brought upon a snow-sled, which was drawn by two men upon snow-shoes. The storm had not yet entirely abated. The wind was high, and the air was growing intensely cold. This was to be expected. It is usually much colder in such cases after the storm is over, than while the snow continues to fall. They dug the grave at some little distance from the house, under the margin of a wood where there was a little shelter. In digging it they had first to go down through the deep snow, and then with pick-axes and iron bars to dig into the frozen ground. When the grave was ready they put boards over it, to prevent its being filled up again with the snow. The funeral took place just at sunset. Hugh had broken out a road to the place by means of the oxen. The men placed the coffin on a sled; it had been arranged that two of the neighbors were to draw it. They said at first that none but men could go to the grave, but Ellen said that she _must_ go. "I can walk very well," said she, "I know, if you can let me have a pair of the snow-shoes. I _must_ go. My aunt loved me and always took care of me, and I must keep with her till the very last." When the men found how desirous she was to go, they said that they could take another sled and draw her. They said that if she would like to take Rodolphus with her, they could draw him, too; but Rodolphus said, that he did not wish to go. When all was ready, the company assembled in the great room, and Antonio read a prayer which Ellen found in a prayer-book that had belonged to her Aunt Anne. It was a prayer suitable to a funeral occasion. When the prayer had been read, the funeral procession moved mournfully from the door.