Clergy -- Fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
well, lingered all about among the graves, looking with neighbourly,
calm regret, but the liveliest curiosity. Most of the shopkeepers at
that end of George Street had closed their shops on the mournful
occasion, and felt themselves repaid. As for Elsworthy, he stood with a
group of supporters round him, as near as possible to the funeral
procession; and farther off in the distance, under the trees, was a much
more elegant spectator--an unlikely man enough to assist at such a
spectacle, being no less a person than Jack Wentworth, in the
perfection of an English gentleman's morning apparel, perfectly at his
ease and indifferent, yet listening with close attention to all the
scraps of talk that came in his way. The centre of all this wondering,
curious crowd, where so many passions and emotions and schemes and
purposes were in full tide, and life was beating so strong and vehement,
was the harmless dead, under the heavy pall which did not veil him so
entirely from the living as did the hopes and fears and curious
speculations which had already sprung up over him, filling up his place.
Among the whole assembly there was not one heart really occupied by
thoughts of him, except that of poor Lucy, who knew nothing of all the
absorbing anxieties and terrors that occupied the others. She had still
a moment's leisure for her natural grief. It was all she could do to
keep upright and support her sister, who had burdens to bear which Lucy
knew nothing of; but still, concealed under her hood and veil, seeing
nothing but the grave before her, hearing nothing but the sacred words
and the terrible sound of "dust to dust," the young creature stood
steadfast, and gave the dead man who had loved her his due--last
offering of nature and love, sweeter to anticipate than any honours.
Nobody but his child offered to poor Mr Wodehouse that last right of
humanity, or made his grave sacred with natural tears.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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