It was not during the funeral, nor even for a day or two afterwards, that the desolateness of her position forced itself upon Margaret, for it is never while the body of the beloved one is in the house, and the mind is forced to lend itself to the customary preparations for the signs of mourning (stupid enough in themselves, but serviceable in that they compel the thought from the acute woe of the first terrible days)—it is never then that the loss is realised in its greatness. When the last caller has spoken the condolences which he meant to be kind, and the door is shut, enclosing the empty house, it is then that the weight of the loss is most crushing. To Margaret everything seemed to have gone with that presence which had pervaded the house. The shutters had not been taken down from the windows of the little shop, but Margaret knew without looking for them where the books were which he loved, and the papers he had handled. The animals that he had fed looked at her with wistful eyes that made Margaret weep afresh. The chair in which he had sat seemed to hold a shadowy form, and Margaret could not but throw herself beside it and cry— “O, for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!” It was not the time for her lover to speak of his love, or to urge its claims. John felt that all that he could do was to sit sometimes by her side, that she might get what comfort she could from his presence. She was so entirely alone in the world that he thought she must consent to marry him. What else should she do? And as he said this to himself a great joy of hope filled him. He loved her so greatly—his own beautiful darling, that he would gladly live with her in this little home, and leave his own to his mother; or he would take her beyond the seas, and work for her as a common emigrant, and feel himself a crowned king when she rewarded him with her love. There was nothing—nothing that he would not do to possess her; and surely the time was nearer than ever now. But a few days afterward a terrible thing happened, which put that for which he longed even farther away than it had seemed before, and which would have made a weaker woman than Margaret really ill.