I was glad in a sort of agony when it was over.  So long as it remained to be done, something of the catastrophe was still suspended.  Now it was all over.

The house so strangely empty.  No owner—­no master!  I with my strange momentary liberty, bereft of that irreplaceable love, never quite prized until it is lost.  Most people have experienced the dismay that underlies sorrow under such circumstances.

The apartment of the poor outcast from life is now dismantled.  Beds and curtains taken down, and furniture displaced; carpets removed, windows open and doors locked; the bedroom and anteroom were henceforward, for many a day, uninhabited.  Every shocking change smote my heart like a reproach.

I saw that day that Cousin Monica had been crying for the first time, I think, since her arrival at Knowl; and I loved her more for it, and felt consoled.  My tears have often been arrested by the sight of another person weeping, and I never could explain why.  But I believe that many persons experience the same odd reaction.

The funeral was conducted, in obedience to his brief but peremptory direction, very privately and with little expense.  But of course there was an attendance, and the tenants of the Knowl estate also followed the hearse to the mausoleum, as it is called, in the park, where he was laid beside my dear mother.  And so the repulsive ceremonial of that dreadful day was over.  The grief remained, but there was rest from the fatigue of agitation, and a comparative calm supervened.

It was now the stormy equinoctial weather that sounds the wild dirge of autumn, and marches the winter in.  I love, and always did, that grand undefinable music, threatening and bewailing, with its strange soul of liberty and desolation.

By this night’s mail, as we sat listening to the storm, in the drawing-room at Knowl, there reached me a large letter with a great black seal, and a wonderfully deep-black border, like a widow’s crape.  I did not recognise the handwriting; but on opening the funereal missive, it proved to be from my uncle Silas, and was thus expressed:—­

’MY DEAREST NIECE,—­This letter will reach you, probably, on the day which consigns the mortal remains of my beloved brother, Austin, your dear father, to the earth.  Sad ceremony, from taking my mournful part in which I am excluded by years, distance, and broken health.  It will, I trust, at this season of desolation, be not unwelcome to remember that a substitute, imperfect—­unworthy—­but most affectionately zealous, for the honoured parent whom you have just lost, has been appointed, in me, your uncle, by his will.  I am aware that you were present during the reading of it, but I think it will be for our mutual satisfaction that our new and more affectionate relations should be forthwith entered upon.  My conscience and your safety, and I trust convenience, will thereby be consulted.  You will, my dear niece, remain at Knowl, until a