He was reminded of
one of the daily little actions, which acquire such power when they
have been performed for the last time by one we love. He began to
think over his wife's daily round of duties: and something in the
remembrance that these would never more be done by her, touched the
source of tears, and he cried aloud. Poor Mary, meanwhile, had
mechanically helped the neighbour in all the last attentions to the
dead; and when she was kissed and spoken to soothingly, tears stole
quietly down her cheeks; but she reserved the luxury of a full burst
of grief till she should be alone. She shut the chamber-door
softly, after the neighbour was gone, and then shook the bed by
which she knelt with her agony of sorrow. She repeated, over and
over again, the same words; the same vain, unanswered address to her
who was no more. "Oh, mother! mother, are you really dead! Oh,
mother, mother!"
At last she stopped, because it flashed across her mind that her
violence of grief might disturb her father. All was still below.
She looked on the face so changed, and yet so strangely like.
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