'
Then arose the wild wailing of unavailing grief, and sobs, mixed with
early recollections of childhood, and all poor Lily's sweet traits
poured out.
Old Aunt Rebecca took the note. Her stoicism was the point on which she
piqued herself most. She looked very pale, and she told her niece to be
composed; for Aunt Becky had a theory that feelings ought to be
commanded, and that it only needed effort and resolution. So she read
the note, holding her head very high, but the muscles of her face were
quivering.
'Oh! Gertrude, if ever there was an angel--and the poor desolate old
man----'
The theory broke down, and old Aunt Rebecca cried and sat down, and
cried heartily, and went and put her thin arms round her niece, and
kissed her, and cried, and cried, and kissed her again.
'She was such--such a darling--oh! Gertrude dear, we must never quarrel
any more.'
Death had come so near, and all things less than itself were rebuked in
that sublime presence; and Lily Walsingham was gone; and she who was so
lately their gay companion, all at once so awfully angelic in the
unearthly light of death.
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