Seated by myself upon a tombstone, I sat musing on death and immortality; on the raptures and the woes of the invisible world; on the dying and on the dead; till I saw the procession moving slowly up a lane which led to the place of sepulture. The pall was supported by six females dressed in white; and one walked before the corpse, carrying a chaplet of flowers. The parents and their surviving children followed; and a large proportion of the village hung on, as deeply interested spectators. On entering the church, the bier was placed in the aisle; the pall-bearers standing by its sides during the whole of the service. The procession at length moved to the grave, which was under the shade of a yew tree. Every eye appeared suffused with tears; but when the noise of the earth falling on the coffin was heard, there was such a simultaneous emotion of grief excited, that nearly all wept, except the parents. They stood motionless; the power of feeling seemed suspended; a fixed melancholy was impressed on their countenance; and they walked away, the victims of despair, moving from one dreary spot to another not less dreary. As their grief appeared too singular to use any of the common methods which that passion generally adopts to gain relief from its own inflictions, I felt anxious to ascertain the specific cause of its excitement; and, on returning to the rectory, I asked Mr. Ingleby to give us the history of the deceased. "She was," he said, "the eldest daughter of an opulent farmer, who resides about half-a-mile off; an extremely handsome and accomplished girl; and, from the elegance of her manners, and her intellectual attainments, she was fitted to move in the most polite circles. But though she stood without a rival in the whole hamlet, she was either unconscious of her superiority, or had too much good sense to display it. She would visit the sick, instruct the children of the poor, or perform any other work of mercy. In her the passion of selfishness was annihilated, and she lived to bless others. But she wanted the grace of pure religion to give the finishing polish to her attractive charms: and had she possessed this at an earlier period of her life, she might still have been, what she once was, the glory of her father's house.