Next day brought the odious incident, the visit of the undertaker—­the carpentery, upholstery, and millinery of death.  Why has not civilisation abolished these repulsive and shocking formalities?  What has the poor corpse to do with frills, and pillows, and napkins, and all the equipage in which it rides on its last journey?  There is no intrusion so jarring to the decent grief of surviving affection, no conceivable mummery more derisive of mortality.

In the room which we had been so long used to call “the nursery,” now desolate and mute, the unclosed coffin lay, with our darling shrouded in it.  Before we went to our rest at night we visited it.  In the morning the lid was to close over that sweet face, and I was to see the child laid by her little brother.  We looked upon the well-known and loved features, purified in the sublime serenity of death, for a long time, whispering to one another, among our sobs, how sweet and beautiful we thought she looked; and at length, weeping bitterly, we tore ourselves away.

We talked and wept for many hours, and at last, in sheer exhaustion, dropt asleep.  My little wife awaked me, and said—­

“I think they have come—­the—­the undertakers.”

It was still dark, so I could not consult my watch; but they were to have arrived early, and as it was winter, and the nights long, the hour of their visit might well have arrived.

“What, darling, is your reason for thinking so?” I asked.

“I am sure I have heard them for some time in the nursery,” she answered.  “Oh! dear, dear little Fanny!  Don’t allow them to close the coffin until I have seen my darling once more.”

I got up, and threw some clothes hastily about me.  I opened the door and listened.  A sound like a muffled knocking reached me from the nursery.

“Yes, my darling!” I said, “I think they have come.  I will go and desire them to wait until you have seen her again.”

And, so saying, I hastened from the room.

Our bedchamber lay at the end of a short corridor, opening from the lobby, at the head of the stairs, and the nursery was situated nearly at the end of a corresponding passage, which opened from the same lobby at the opposite side As I hurried along I distinctly heard the same sounds.  The light of dawn had not yet appeared, but there was a strong moonlight shining through the windows.  I thought the morning could hardly be so far advanced as we had at first supposed; but still, strangely as it now seems to me, suspecting nothing amiss, I walked on in noiseless, slippered feet, to the nursery-door.  It stood half open; some one had unquestionably visited it since we had been there.  I stepped forward, and entered.  At the threshold horror arrested my advance.

The coffin was placed upon tressles at the further extremity of the chamber, with the foot of it nearly towards the door, and a large window at the side of it admitted the cold lustre of the moon full upon the apparatus of mortality, and the objects immediately about it.