was one chiefly noticeable for the superior taste of its Gothic canopy, and which bore the name of Frederick Henry Langford, with the date of his death, and his age, only twenty-six.  One of the large flat stones below also had the initials F.H.L., and the date of the year.  Henrietta stood and looked in deep silence, Beatrice watching her earnestly and kindly, and her uncle’s thoughts almost as much as hers, on what might have been.  Her father had been so near him in age, so constantly his companion, so entirely one in mind and temper, that he had been far more to him than his elder brother, and his death had been the one great sorrow of Uncle Geoffrey’s life.

The first sound which broke the stillness was the opening of the door, as the old clerk’s wife entered with a huge basket of holly, and dragging a mighty branch behind her.  Uncle Geoffrey nodded in reply to her courtesy, and gave his daughter a glance which sent her to the other end of the church to assist in the Christmas decorations.

Henrietta turned her liquid eyes upon her uncle.  “This is coming very near him!” said she in a low voice.  “Uncle; I wish I might be quite sure that he knows me.”

“Do not wish too much for certainty which has not been granted to us,” said Uncle Geoffrey.  “Think rather of ’I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.’”

“But, uncle, you would not have me not believe that he is near to me and knows how—­how I would have loved him, and how I do love him,” she added, while the tears rose to her eyes.

“It may be so, my dear, and it is a thought which is not only most comforting, but good for us, as bringing us closer to the unseen world:  but it has not been positively revealed, and it seems to me better to dwell on that time when the meeting with him is so far certain that it depends but on ourselves.”

To many persons, Uncle Geoffrey would scarce have spoken in this way; but he was aware of a certain tendency in Henrietta’s mind to merge the reverence and respect she owed to her parents, in a dreamy unpractical feeling for the father whom she had never known, whose voice she had never heard, and from whom she had not one precept to obey; while she lost sight of that honour and duty which was daily called for towards her mother.  It was in honour, not in love, that Henrietta was wanting, and with how many daughters is it not the same?  It was therefore, that though even to himself it seemed harsh, and cost him a pang, Mr. Geoffrey Langford resolved that his niece’s first visit to her father’s grave should not be spent in fruitless dreams of him or of his presence, alluring because involving neither self-reproach nor resolution; but in thoughts which might lead to action, to humility, and to the yielding up of self-will.

Henrietta looked very thoughtful.  “That time is so far away!” said she.

“How do you know that?” said her uncle in the deep low tone that brought the full perception that “it is nigh, even at the doors.”