At the last moment, when all the preparations were completed, Old Sophy stooped over her, and, with trembling hand, loosed the golden cord.  She looked intently, for some little space:  there was no shade nor blemish where the ring of gold had encircled her throat.  She took it gently away and laid it in the casket which held her ornaments.

“The Lord be praised!” the old woman cried, aloud.  “He has taken away the mark that was on her; she’s fit to meet his holy angels now!”

So Elsie lay for hours in the great room, in a kind of state, with flowers all about her,—­her black hair braided, as in life,—­her brows smooth, as if they had never known the scowl of passion,—­and on her lips the faint smile with which she had uttered her last “Good-night.”  The young girls from the school looked at her, one after another, and passed on, sobbing, carrying in their hearts the picture that would be with them all their days.  The great people of the place were all there with their silent sympathy.  The lesser kind of gentry, and many of the plainer folk of the village, half-pleased to find themselves passing beneath the stately portico of the ancient mansion-house, crowded in, until the ample rooms were overflowing.  All the friends whose acquaintance we have made were there, and many from remoter villages and towns.

There was a deep silence at last.  The hour had come for the parting words to be spoken over the dead.  The good old minister’s voice rose out of the stillness, subdued and tremulous at first, but growing firmer and clearer as he went on, until it reached the ears of the visitors who were in the far, desolate chambers, looking at the pictured hangings and the old dusty portraits.  He did not tell her story in his prayer.  He only spoke of our dear departed sister as one of many whom Providence in its wisdom has seen fit to bring under bondage from their cradles.  It was not for us to judge them by any standard of our own.  He who made the heart alone knew the infirmities it inherited or acquired.  For all that our dear sister had presented that was interesting and attractive in her character we were to be grateful; for whatever was dark or inexplicable we must trust that the deep shadow which rested on the twilight dawn of her being might render a reason before the bar of Omniscience; for the grace which had lightened her last days we should pour out our hearts in thankful acknowledgment.  From the life and the death of this our dear sister we should learn a lesson of patience with our fellow-creatures in their inborn peculiarities, of charity in judging what seem to us wilful faults of character, of hope and trust, that, by sickness or affliction, or such inevitable discipline as life must always bring with it, if by no gentler means, the soul which had been left by Nature to wander into the path of error and of suffering might be reclaimed and restored to its true aim, and so led on by divine grace to its eternal welfare.  He closed his prayer by commending each member of the afflicted family to the divine blessing.