When we reached the church, I opened the door and entered. An awe fell upon me fresh and new. The beautiful church had become a tomb: solemn, grand, ancient, it rose as a memorial of the dead who lay in peace before her altar-rail, as if they had fled thither for sanctuary from a sea of troubles. And I thought with myself, Will the time ever come when the churches shall stand as the tombs of holy things that have passed away, when Christ shall have rendered up the kingdom to his Father, and no man shall need to teach his neighbour or his brother, saying, “Know the Lord”? The thought passed through my mind and vanished, as I led my companion up to the dead. He glanced at one and another, and passed on. He had looked at ten or twelve ere he stopped, gazing on the face of the beautiful form which had first come ashore. He stooped and stroked the white cheeks, taking the head in his great rough hands, and smoothed the brown hair tenderly, saying, as if he had quite forgotten that she was dead-- “Eh, Maggie! hoo cam _ye_ here, lass?” Then, as if for the first time the reality had grown comprehensible, he put his hands before his face, and burst into tears. His huge frame was shaken with sobs for one long minute, while I stood looking on with awe and reverence. He ceased suddenly, pulled a blue cotton handkerchief with yellow spots on it--I see it now--from his pocket, rubbed his face with it as if drying it with a towel, put it back, turned, and said, without looking at me, “I’ll awa’ hame.” “Wouldn’t you like a piece of her hair?” I asked. “Gin ye please,” he answered gently, as if his daughter’s form had been mine now, and her hair were mine to give. By the vestry door sat Mrs. Coombes, watching the dead, with her sweet solemn smile, and her constant ministration of knitting. “Have you got a pair of scissors there, Mrs. Coombes?” I asked. “Yes, to be sure, sir,” she answered, rising, and lifting a huge pair by the string suspending them from her waist. “Cut off a nice piece of this beautiful hair,” I said. She lifted the lovely head, chose, and cut off a long piece, and handed it respectfully to the father. He took it without a word, sat down on the step before the communion-rail, and began to smooth out the wonderful sleave of dusky gold. It was, indeed, beautiful hair. As he drew it out, I thought it must be a yard long. He passed his big fingers through and through it, but tenderly, as if it had been still growing on the live lovely head, stopping every moment to pick out the bits of sea-weed and shells, and shake out the sand that had been wrought into its mass. He sat thus for nearly half-an-hour, and we stood looking on with something closely akin to awe. At length he folded it up, drew from his pocket an old black leather book, laid it carefully in the innermost pocket, and rose. I led the way from the church, and he followed me.