Then, from the sitting-room, two of Hugh's friends came in, turned down the light, covered the still face, and went back to keep their watch in the desolate hours of mourning.
The sun was sinking towards the west in unclouded brightness when a throng gathered in the old stone house to pay their last tribute of respect to the dead. "Fitz Hugh Warrington, aged twenty years and ten months," said the inscription on the coffin-lid, and many tears dropped upon it, as, one by one, the friends bent over to take a farewell look at the handsome face with its clustering golden hair. Then came the voice of the aged pastor, reading the words of the Gospel of St. John,—Hugh's favorite chapter, the fourteenth. A hymn followed,—Hugh's favorite hymn, "Brightest and best of the sons of the morning," and then they all knelt in prayer, the fervent prayer mingled with tears which ascends from the house where the dearest one of all is dead.
Mr. Leslie took no part in the services; he stood with Sibyl as one of the family. Aunt Faith leaned upon the arm of Mr. Hastings, who had come from New York immediately upon hearing of the accident. Tom and Gem stood together, but Bessie was alone; she wished no support, she said; she only wanted to stay by Hugh until the last. So they let her stand by the head of the coffin alone,—alone with her dead, and with her God.
Then came another hymn, and slowly the bearers lifted all that was left of their friend, and bore it forth under the same faded flower-arch, and down the garden-walk, where the throng made way for them on either side as they passed.
The sun was setting, and, standing on the piazza, the choir sang,—
Abide with me; fast falls the even tide,
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail, and comforts Bee,
Help of the helpless, Oh abide with me.
I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless,
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;
Where is death's sting, where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me."
CHAPTER XI.
CONCLUSION.
A year had passed, and the colored leaves were dropping for the second time upon Hugh's grave. Aunt Faith and Bessie were in the sitting-room of the old stone house, and the voices of Tom and Gem sounded through the open hall-door from the back garden, where they were sitting under the oak-tree. Hugh's portrait stood upon an easel, with living ivy growing around it from the little bracket which he had made that last day of summer. The afternoon sun struck the picture, and gave it a vivid realistic expression; Bessie saw it, and laying down her work, looked lovingly into the bright face. "It is very like Hugh, is it not, Aunt Faith?" she said at last.