Page:Poems Rice.djvu/23

 ance at the church, and a host of friends followed her to her last resting-place—the wardens and vestry-men of the church assisting as pall-bearers.

On a bright and beautiful day we took all that remained to us of our departed friend, and laid her down in the beautiful cemetery of "Forest Hills," there to rest till the graves are opened, and the dead shall rise to life everlasting.

Mrs. Rice was, by descent, partly of Spanish blood, her father having been born, I think, on the Spanish Peninsula. She showed something of the Spanish blood in her brunette complexion, and in the beauty and brilliancy of her eyes. She had also some of the best traits of the Spanish character, in her entire self-poise and reliance, and, when among strangers, in her retiring and dignified demeanor.

She showed it also in another tendency, common to all the Latin races, a love for the services and the worship of the Roman Catholic Church. It was not unusual for her to attend vespers at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, and she went there not as a spectator—not to assist, as it were, at a splendid and imposing ceremonial or a gorgeous spectacle, but to listen to penitential psalms of David chanted to the music of the great masters of the art, and to worship, in spirit and in truth, the great Father of us all.

To those who did not know Mrs. Rice, all this may seem like extravagant eulogy, but there are many of her lady friends—and to make and retain friendships among her own sex is the true test of a true woman—who, to use the language of Ames in regard to Hamilton, will truly say, that when they think of her their hearts grow liquid as they think, and they could pour them out like water.

I would not say of Mrs. Rice, as Leigh Hunt, I think, said of some beautiful character, "To have known her and to have loved her was equal to a liberal education," but certainly no one could know Mrs. Rice well without being made better by the acquaintance, or without being lifted to higher and better aspirations.—Portsmouth Journal.