“Catherine, if any feeling of penitential sorrow inspires your wish to go there, go, in Heaven’s name! And may the sight of that dead face bring you to repentance.” She turned to thank him, and ask him what he wished her to repent—but before she could find words, he had re-entered his study. Catherine passed into the room of death, turned down the pall, and gazed upon the face of the dead. It had changed very much—every furrow and every wrinkle was softened out of it, the forehead was as smooth as the brow of childhood, an ineffable, a divine repose spread like a dream of Heaven over the features. Catherine’s tears were stayed, the convulsions of her bosom were calmed, her soul was awed and exalted as she gazed upon this countenance, so beautiful in death. But at last her full heart revealed itself in a look of unutterable tenderness and devotion, and she murmured, in low, slow, gentle tones—“You always loved and trusted me, and for your dear sake, I will be a good wife to your son. Yes! whatever he may be to me, for your dear sake, as well as for his own, I will be a good wife to him. Hear my vow. “I cannot think you dead. This is all I see—this beautiful, calm clay; but I know your spirit hovers near. Hear my vow. Hear me promise, with God’s grace, to dedicate all my faculties of brain, and heart, and hands to his interest and happiness! to bear all things, to endure all things, to hope all things, even to the end of life, come what may;” she stooped and sealed her vow by a farewell kiss upon the brow and lips of that beloved face, and reverently covered it, and—not to abuse her privilege by too long a stay—slowly left the room. She never saw that face again. Within an hour afterwards, the company began to assemble in great crowds, for Mrs. Clifton was widely known and greatly respected and beloved. The clergyman, who was to perform the burial service, arrived, and the solemnity commenced. In the mean time Catherine sat in her distant chamber, listening to the faint, inaudible sound of the minister’s voice that reached her from afar, or else engaged in prayer, but always calmed, strengthened and consoled. Many people at the funeral wondered greatly why the young bride had not appeared with her husband; but some one imagined it to be because she was too much overcome by sorrow to be present, and told it as a fact, which was at once believed, and circulated. And that—like many an other idle falsehood, satisfactorily silenced conjecture. When the services were over, and the funeral procession had left the house for the grave-yard—when Catherine felt that her more than mother was now indeed gone, gone, gone—she cast herself upon her bed in the last agony of sorrow.