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160, and the despair, all these are spared by the merciful, the early grave.

The week passed, with its days, like ghosts, flitting by in silence and awe, till at length came the evening when Albert Lord Stukeley was to be laid to the long last sleep of his ancestry. The red glare of the tapers flung a strange unnatural hue on the painted windows of the little Gothic chapel, where none slept save the noble of name, and the high of blood—purple and crimson, the colours mingled together in fantastic combinations, till the rainbow-hued figures seemed to move with supernatural life. The banners hung from the roof, frail and faded memorials of a glory which now formed the archives of a house instead of the history of a nation. Tablet and escutcheon were suspended from the walls; and below were the sculptured tombs, each with, its marble effigy. Here was the armed knight, his head upon his shield, his foot on his hound,—the image having long survived the original; the one yet gave a stern likeness of humanity, the other was now but a handful of dust, ready to be dispersed by the first breath of air that might penetrate its carved sepulchre. How much of empty distinction above mocked the nothingness below! Here was the storied trophy, the blazoned arms, the