“I am sure I should wish it very much,” said Henrietta, and they entered the low, dark, solemn-looking building, the massive stone columns and low-browed arches of which had in them something peculiarly awful and impressive to Henrietta’s present state of mind. Uncle Geoffrey led her on into the chancel, where, among numerous mural tablets recording the names of different members of the Langford family, was one chiefly noticeable for the superior taste of its Gothic canopy, and which bore the name of Frederick Henry Langford, with the date of his death, and his age, only twenty-six. One of the large flat stones below also had the initials F.H.L., and the date of the year. Henrietta stood and looked in deep silence, Beatrice watching her earnestly and kindly, and her uncle’s thoughts almost as much as hers, on what might have been. Her father had been so near him in age, so constantly his companion, so entirely one in mind and temper, that he had been far more to him than his elder brother, and his death had been the one great sorrow of Uncle Geoffrey’s life. The first sound which broke the stillness was the opening of the door, as the old clerk’s wife entered with a huge basket of holly, and dragging a mighty branch behind her. Uncle Geoffrey nodded in reply to her courtesy, and gave his daughter a glance which sent her to the other end of the church to assist in the Christmas decorations. Henrietta turned her liquid eyes upon her uncle. “This is coming very near him!” said she in a low voice. “Uncle; I wish I might be quite sure that he knows me.” “Do not wish too much for certainty which has not been granted to us,” said Uncle Geoffrey. “Think rather of ‘I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.’” “But, uncle, you would not have me not believe that he is near to me and knows how--how I would have loved him, and how I do love him,” she added, while the tears rose to her eyes. “It may be so, my dear, and it is a thought which is not only most comforting, but good for us, as bringing us closer to the unseen world: but it has not been positively revealed, and it seems to me better to dwell on that time when the meeting with him is so far certain that it depends but on ourselves.”