Bessie's Fortune

The funeral was appointed for half past two on Saturday afternoon, and Burton, who went over in the morning, asked Grey to go with him.

"Your Aunt Hannah will expect you. She was disappointed in not seeing you yesterday," but Grey said promptly: "No, I'll wait, and go with mother."

So Mr. Jerrold went alone with Lucy, leaving his wife and Grey to join him about half past one, just before the neighbors began to assemble. When Grey came in, Hannah, who was already draped in her mourning robe which Lucy had provided for her, went up to him, and putting her arms around him, said, very low and gently, but with no sadness in the tone: "Oh, Grey, I am so glad you have come and sorry you are suffering so from headache, but I know just how you loved him and how he loved you--better than anything else in the world. Will you come with me and see him now? He looks so calm and peaceful and happy, just as you never saw him look."

"Oh, no, no!" Grey cried, wrenching himself from her. "I cannot see him; don't ask me, please."

"Not see your grandfather who loved you so much? Oh, Grey!" Hannah exclaimed, with both wonder and reproach in her voice. "I want you to remember him as he looks now, so different from what he was in life."

"But I cannot," Grey said, "I never saw any one dead; I cannot bear it," and going from her he took a seat in the kitchen as far as possible from the bedroom which held so much horror for him.

He knew his grandfather was not there, for he was lying in his coffin in the front room, where Lucy Grey had put the flowers brought from the conservatory at Grey's Park. But the other one was there, under the floor where he had lain for thirty-one years, and Grey was thinking of him, wondering who he was and if no inquiries had ever been made for him. The room was a haunted place for him, and he was glad the door was closed, and once, when Lucy went into it for something, he started us if to keep her back. Then remembering that he must never be supposed to know the secret of that room, he sank again into his chair in the corner, where he staid until the people began to assemble, when he went with his mother into the adjoining room, where the coffin was and where he sat immovable as a stone through the service, which, was not very long. The hymn, which had been selected by Hannah, was the one commencing with, "Asleep in Jesus, that blest sleep, from which none ever wake to weep," and as the mournful music filled the rooms, and the words came distinctly to Grey's ears, he started as if struck a blow, while to himself he said: "Is he asleep in Jesus? If I only knew! Can no one tell me? Poor grandpa!"