THE SOLITARY MOURNER. 



in the unwelcome daylight just admitted, beside the bed on 

 which he had seen depart, successively, the two who had made 

 life dear: he stood alone in the room alone in the hard 

 mocking world. On the table under the glass just where 

 it had been placed to please the innocent eyes which would 

 never again reward with a smile his labours of love lay the 

 white rose he had gathered on the morning before his little 

 one died. For lack of water the flower had withered even 

 before her cheek was cold, and now the lapse of a week had 

 turned it brown and shrivelled. But though there was no 

 life within the rose, there was life about it near it. The 

 captive Lady-bird still survived ; and as if shrinking from 

 contact with the vegetable death, was traversing uneasily the 

 sides of the tumbler. 



The mourner's eye followed the motions of the insect. It 

 was something living to look at when all else to him seemed 

 dead. It was the last object, except himself, on which his 

 little Rachel had smiled, perhaps the last save himself, on 

 which her thoughts had wandered. 



Remember the Bastille prisoner and his spider; Silvio 

 Pellico with his. Their hearts could cling even to a loath- 

 some object, because they were alone shut out from com- 

 munion with human life and human love; yet they, in the 

 world beyond their prison walls, had other lives bound up with 

 theirs other hearts with which theirs, at least in fancy, could 

 hold fond intercourse, and hope to meet again on earth. 



