Next morning John and Mrs. Norton drove to the Rectory, and without
asking for Mr. Hare, they went to _her_ room. The windows were open;
Annie and Mary Austin sat by the bedside watching. The blood had been
washed out of the beautiful hair, and she lay very white and fair amid
the roses her friends had brought her. She lay as she had lain in one
of her terrible dreams--quite still, the slender body covered by a
sheet. From the feet the linen curved and marked the inflections of
the knees; there were long flowing folds, low-lying like the wash of
retiring water. And beautiful indeed were the rounded shoulders, the
neck, the calm and bloodless face, the little nose, and the drawing of
the nostrils, the extraordinary waxen pallor, the eyelids laid like
rose-leaves upon the eyes that death has closed for ever. An Ascension
lily lay within the arm, in the pale hand.
Candles were burning, and the soft smell of wax mixed with the perfume
of the roses. For there were roses everywhere--great snowy bouquets
and long lines of scattered blossoms, and single roses there and here,
and the petals falling were as tears shed for the beautiful dead, and
the white flowerage vied with the pallor and the immaculate stillness
of the dead.
When they next saw her she was in her coffin. It was almost full of
white blossoms--jasmine, Eucharis lilies, white roses, and in the
midst of the flowers the hands lay folded, and the face was veiled
with some delicate, filmy handkerchief.
For the funeral there were crosses and wreaths of white flowers,
roses, and stephanotis. And the Austin girls and their cousins, who
had come from Brighton and Worthing, carried loose flowers. Down the
short drive, through the iron gate, through the farm gate, the bearers
staggering a little under the weight of lead, the little _cortege_
passed two by two. A broken-hearted lover, a grief-stricken father,
and a dozen sweet girls, their eyes and cheeks streaming with tears.
Kitty, their girl friend, was dead. The word 'dead' rang in their
hearts in answer to the mournful tolling of the bell. The little by-
way along which they went, the little green path leading over the
hill, was strewn with blossoms fallen from the bier and the fingers of
the weeping girls.
The old church was all in white; great lilies in vases, wreaths of
stephanotis; and, above all, roses--great garlands of white roses had
been woven, and they hung along and across. A blossom fell, a sob
sounded in the stillness. An hour of roses, an hour of sorrow, and the
coffin sank out of sight, a snow-drift of delicate bloom descended
into the earth.