He lay muttering little speeches of this kind at intervals all that night; kissed his wife's hand ever and anon with maudlin fondness; was declared by the physicians next morning to be convalescent; and three days afterwards was dead; just a week after his valet had been buried in the churchyard of St. Giles's in the Fields. * * * * * Vyvyan Topsparkle's funeral was the most splendid function of the funereal kind that had been seen in London since the burial of the Duke of Buckinghamshire, and the most distinguished assemblage of mourners that had followed a hearse since the great ones of the land bore Sir Isaac Newton's pall, and followed genius and philosophy to the grave, a few months before. As that frivolous great world had done reverence to intellect, so now it did homage to wealth and fashion. Mr. Topsparkle was buried in the family vault in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, where the bones of his father the Alderman had been laid five-and-forty years before, in a sarcophagus of Florentine marble, sent from Rome by his dutiful son. The plumes, the sable horses, the mourning chariots, and procession of hireling mourners, the long train of fashionable carriages, made a striking impression upon the crowd in the Strand and Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill and St. Paul's Churchyard. Nor was Lady Judith, in her sable robes, the least imposing figure in that stately ceremonial. Calm and dignified in her sober bearing, affecting no false hysteria of grief, but shedding a womanly tear or two for poor humanity at those pathetic words, "Man, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery," she won the sympathy and admiration of all who looked upon her. "I protest she is the most beautiful woman in England," said Bolingbroke to Pulteney, as they stood side by side in the shadowy crypt. "And the richest, Harry. Are you not almost sorry you are married--though 'tis to the most charming woman of my acquaintance?" "Faith, Will, yonder handsome widow would be a glorious chance for a greater man than your humble servant, and my admiration of her only stops short of passionate love. Her money would have been my salvation; for I confess my own fortune has dwindled atrociously since I bought Lord Tankerville's place, and turned gentleman farmer; and my father's unamiable pertinacity in living might force his son to an untimely death in a debtors' prison, were there no such thing as privilege." CHAPTER X. "THE LITTLE HEARTS WHERE LIGHT-WINGED PASSION REIGNS."