The time came when Elsie was to be laid by her mother in the small square marked by the white stone.

It was not unwillingly that the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather had relinquished the duty of conducting the service to the Reverend Doctor Honeywood, in accordance with Elsie’s request.  He could not, by any reasoning, reconcile his present way of thinking with a hope for the future of his unfortunate parishioner.  Any good old Roman Catholic priest, born and bred to his faith and his business, would have found a loophole into some kind of heaven for her, by virtue of his doctrine of “invincible ignorance,” or other special proviso; but a recent convert cannot enter into the working conditions of his new creed.  Beliefs must be lived in for a good while, before they accommodate themselves to the soul’s wants, and wear loose enough to be comfortable.

The Reverend Doctor had no such scruples.  Like thousands of those who are classed nominally with the despairing believers, he had never prayed over a departed brother or sister without feeling and expressing a guarded hope that there was mercy in store for the poor sinner, whom parents, wives, children, brothers and sisters could not bear to give up to utter ruin without a word,—­and would not, as he knew full well, in virtue of that human love and sympathy which nothing can ever extinguish.  And in this poor Elsie’s history he could read nothing which the tears of the recording angel might not wash away.  As the good physician of the place knew the diseases that assailed the bodies of men and women, so he had learned the mysteries of the sickness of the soul.

So many wished to look upon Elsie’s face once more, that her father would not deny them; nay, he was pleased that those who remembered her living should see her in the still beauty of death.  Helen and those with her arrayed her for this farewell-view.  All was ready for the sad or curious eyes which were to look upon her.  There ’was no painful change to be concealed by any artifice.  Even her round neck was left uncovered, that she might be more like one who slept.  Only the golden cord was left in its place:  some searching eye might detect a trace of that birthmark which it was whispered she had always worn a necklace to conceal.

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!”