As I went down stairs I met Mr. Osborne. He stood before me in amazement. "Hester, Hester, you will not think of this!" "Let me pass!" I said, "let some one who loved him go with him--let me pass--no one shall prevent me--he has none in the world of his own blood but me." "My child, my child, you cannot bear it--all shall be done as you shall approve," he said anxiously. I did not answer, but passed him with an impatient gesture. In the close, I found yet another interruption--but _he_ did not try to prevent me--he followed me into the carriage--he knew me better than they did. And so we set out upon our dreary journey--once more I looked from the carriage windows, and wondered if this day was but a common day to the common people round. Once we met a marriage party--a gayer party than ours had been, five weeks ago, with young bright faces, and smiles and jests, and all the natural tokens of a time of joy. I looked at them with the strangest interest. I wondered which was the bride and what was appointed to come to her. Should she be so miserable as I, or was mine a solitary instance? You would fancy a mourner had little room for such thoughts--but I had room for every kind of thought--no wild fancy or speculation in that slow dreadful journey came amiss to me. Everything looked different from what it had been when I came by this same road to my father's death-bed; now the people were at work in the fields; there were cries in the air--passengers on the road, everywhere, life and motion, sunshine and hope. I saw the rustic people pause at their labors to look at our solemn procession; I could fancy how they asked each other who it was that came this way to his last rest. My thoughts went back to that night seven years ago, when my father and I drove this way together, leaving our ancestral home. We had never been on the road again, so far as I knew, never till now, and now we were taking him to a home of which no man should ever dispossess him, to rest with his forefathers for ever.