At last six maidens were permitted to carry it in by the six handles.

The corpse was thus borne, with the most solemn respect, into the hall, and placed for the present upon two stools there.  The plates, and emblems, and inscription, set every one gazing upon it, and admiring it.  The more, when they were told, that all was of her own ordering.  They wished to be permitted a sight of the corpse; but rather mentioned this as their wish than as their hope.  When they had all satisfied their curiosity, and remarked upon the emblems, they dispersed with blessings upon her memory, and with tears and lamentations; pronouncing her to be happy; and inferring, were she not so, what would become of them?  While others ran over with repetitions of the good she delighted to do.  Nor were there wanting those among them, who heaped curses upon the man who was the author of her fall.

The servants of the family then got about the coffin.  They could not before:  and that afforded a new scene of sorrow:  but a silent one; for they spoke only by their eyes, and by sighs, looking upon the lid, and upon one another, by turns, with hands lifted up.  The presence of their young master possibly might awe them, and cause their grief to be expressed only in dumb show.

As for Mr. James Harlowe, (who accompanied me, but withdrew when he saw the crowd,) he stood looking upon the lid, when the people had left it, with a fixed attention:  yet, I dare say, knew not a symbol or letter upon it at that moment, had the question been asked him.  In a profound reverie he stood, his arms folded, his head on one side, and marks of stupefaction imprinted upon every feature.

But when the corpse was carried into the lesser parlour, adjoining to the hall, which she used to call her parlour, and put upon a table in the midst of the room, and the father and mother, the two uncles, her aunt Hervey, and her sister, came in, joining her brother and me, with trembling feet, and eager woe, the scene was still more affecting.  Their sorrow was heightened, no doubt, by the remembrance of their unforgiving severity:  and now seeing before them the receptacle that contained the glory of their family, who so lately was driven thence by their indiscreet violence; never, never more to be restored to the! no wonder that their grief was more than common grief.

They would have withheld the mother, it seems, from coming in.  But when they could not, though undetermined before, they all bore her company, led on by an impulse they could not resist.  The poor lady but just cast her eye upon the coffin, and then snatched it away, retiring with passionate grief towards the window; yet, addressing herself, with clasped hands, as if to her beloved daughter:  O my Child, my Child! cried she; thou pride of my hope!  Why was I not permitted to speak pardon and peace to thee!—­O forgive thy cruel mother!