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284 between the hair of the living and the dead: the one so soft, so fragrant, and falling; the other so harsh, so scentless, and so straight. In nothing is the presence of mortality more strongly marked. There was a perfume hung about the casket; but it came not from that coldly golden hair: it rose from the withered leaves of some flowers, whose scent outlived their colours. Norbourne at once recognised the riband he himself had put round the roses the night of that festival whose end had been so fatal. "Alas!" exclaimed he, "how tenderly has her father garnered these tokens of the past!" and again he felt as if he ought to have done likewise. Below these lay the letter. Norbourne could see that it had been often read; and on it were the trace of tears—tears shed by the proud, the reserved Lord Norbourne. He felt that his uncle did, indeed, love him as his own son, or never would he have let him look on these proofs of the tenderest sorrow,—the most gentle affection. He took up the letter: well