among us who soonest recover from the shock
of a great grief for the dead, are those who
have most duties to perform towards the
living? When the shadow of calamity rests
on our houses, the question with us is, not
how much time will suffice to bring back the
sunshine to us again, but how much occupation
have we got to force us forward into
the place where the sunshine is waiting
for us to come? Time may claim many
victories, but not the victory over grief.
The great consolation for the loss of the
dead who are gone is to be found in the
great necessity of thinking of the living who
remain.

The history of Rosamond's daily life, now
that the darkness of a heavy affliction had
fallen on it, was in itself the sufficient
illustration of this truth. When all the strength
even of her strong character had been
prostrated by the unspeakably awful shock of her
mother's sudden death, it was not the slow
lapse of time that helped to raise her up
again, but the necessity which would not
wait for time—the necessity which made her
remember what was due to the husband who
sorrowed with her, to the child whose young
life was linked to hers, and to the old man
whose helpless grief found no support but in
the comfort she could give, learnt no lesson
of resignation but from the example she
could set.

From the first, the responsibility of
sustaining him had rested on her shoulders
alone. Before the close of day had been
counted out by the first hour of the night,
she had been torn from the bedside by the
necessity of meeting him at the door, and
preparing him to know that he was entering
the chamber of death. To guide the dreadful
truth gradually and gently, till it stood face
to face with him, to support him under the
shock of recognising it, to help his mind to
recover after the inevitable blow had struck
it at last, these were the sacred duties which
claimed all the devotion that Rosamond had
to give, and which forbade her heart to dwell
selfishly on its own grief. It was not the
least of the trials she had now to face, to
see the condition of vacant helplessness to
which he was reduced under the weight
of an affliction which he had no strength to
bear.

He looked like a man whose faculties had
been stunned past recovery. He would sit
for hours with the musical-box by his side,
patting it absently from time to time, and
whispering to himself as he looked at it, but
never attempting to set it playing. It was
the one memorial left that reminded him of
all the joys and sorrows, the simple family
interests and affections of his past life. When
Rosamond first sat by his side and took his
hand to comfort him, he looked backwards
and forwards with forlorn eyes from her
compassionate face to the musical-box, and
vacantly repeated to himself the same words
over and over again: "They are all gone—
my brother Max, my wife, my little Joseph,
my sister Agatha, and Sarah my niece!
I and my little bit of box are left alone
together in the world. Mozart can sing
no more. He has sung to the last of them
now!"

The second day there was no change in
him. On the third, Rosamond placed the
book of Hymns reverently on her mother's
bosom, laid a lock of her own hair round it,
and kissed the sad, peaceful face for the last
time. The old man was with her at that
silent leave-taking, and followed her away,
when it was over. By the side of the coffin,
and, afterwards, when she took him back
with her to her husband, he was still sunk in
the same apathy of grief which had
overwhelmed him from the first. But when they
began to speak of the removal of the remains
the next day to Porthgenna churchyard, they
noticed that his dim eyes brightened suddenly,
and that his wandering attention followed
every word they said. After a while, he rose
from his chair, approached Rosamond, and
looked anxiously in her face. "I think I
could bear it better if you would let me go
with her?" he said. "We two should have
gone back to Cornwall together, if she had
lived. Will you let us still go back together
now that she has died?"

Rosamond gently remonstrated, and tried
to make him see that it was best to leave the
remains to be removed under the charge or
her husband's servant, whose fidelity could
be depended on, and whose position made
him the fittest person to be charged with
cares and responsibilities which near
relations were not capable of undertaking with
sufficient composure. She told him that her
husband intended to stop in London, to give
her one day of rest and quiet which she
absolutely needed, and that they then proposed to
return to Cornwall ia time to be at
Porthgenna before the funeral took place; and she
begged earnestly that he would not think of
separating his lot from theirs at a time of
trouble and trial, when they ought to be all
three most closely united by the ties of mutual
sympathy and mutual sorrow.

He listened silently and submissively while
Rosamond was speaking, but he only
repeated his simple petition when she had
done. The one idea in his mind, now, was
the idea of going back to Cornwall with all
that was left on earth of his sister's child.
Leonard and Rosamond both saw that it
would be useless to oppose it, both felt that
it would be cruelty to keep him with them,
and kindness to let him go away. After
privately charging the servant to spare him
all trouble and difficulty, to humour him by
acceding to any wishes that he might
express, and to give him all possible protection
and help without obtruding either officiously
on his attention, they left him free to follow
the one purpose of his heart which still