The neighbours soon assembled; the last sad duties were performed; and the aged woman, whose melancholy province it was to lay out the dead, and to keep her dreary vigil by the corpse, attended as usual. But old Sarah would not allow her to remain. She said, "she had done for Nicholas to the last while he was living, and she did not see what need there was of any one else to tend him now. She thanked the neighbours kindly, but she could watch by her husband now, as then; and she would not trouble any of them." She settled herself in her chair at the head of the bed, and sat there silent, meek, and patient. Susan, who was a nurse, had her baby brought from the farm, and established it in what had formerly been her own little bed-room. She and her husband then took their station in the chamber of death, and together looked upon the decent corpse of the old man. The brilliant sunset had been followed by a stormy night. The wind howled, and the rain beat against the casement. The rush-candle burned fitfully, and shone with an uncertain light upon the sunk but placid features of the old man. Susan could scarcely defend herself from the vague and superstitious terrors which assail the uneducated on such occasions. The furniture creaked; noises, which in the day are unnoticed, sound startlingly acute in the stillness and darkness of the night. Susan frequently crept into the adjoining apartment to see how it fared with her baby; she bent over it as it slumbered, she listened to its respiration till she fancied it drew its breath painfully. When suffering under one calamity, the human heart is tremblingly alive to the apprehension of others. She imagined the infant was pale; she stole back to beckon her husband to look upon it with her. He attempted to re-assure her; but Susan's heart was oppressed with the foreboding of some fresh ill, and it required all Mr. Otley's patience and good-nature to soothe fears which appeared so unreasonable. It was an inexpressible relief when the grey dawn began to appear. The rain all cleared away, and the sun shone forth in all its splendour; every leaf was glittering in the sunshine, the rain-drops hung on every spray, the birds sang as if to strain their little throats, the flowers were beginning to expand to the welcome rays. Susan placed her baby in her husband's arms while she returned to share her mother's melancholy watch. When she entered the low room, the sun almost dazzled her: its beams streamed in upon the slanting, white-washed ceiling: they shone full upon her mother's face, as she sat in the same attitude in which she had left her,--her head supported by the high back of the upright chair, her hands slightly clasped as they had fallen on her knee, and her eyes closed. Susan drew near; her mother spoke not, moved not: she knelt by her--she listened in breathless agony--no sound, no sign of recognition. The sunbeams glared upon her eyelids, but she heeded them not.