Page:Una and the Lion by Florence Nightingale.djvu/29

 hearkening to the Master's bidding—in death as if hearing the words, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

Years of previous action had prepared this young girl for her life of devotion. Her body was taken back to her own people to be buried in her father's vault.

All the old folks went out to meet her—old men and women of near ninety years of age who could scarcely move on crutches. The young men who had been her own scholars in her big boys' evening class, went a distance to meet the funeral, and carried in the coffin themselves. The school-children and school-mistresses gathered primroses and snow-drops and violets from all the county round, and brought these, and yew and ivy from the garden which she had planted for them herself. The whole district seemed to be there—at the grave of their dear one. But the hush of solemn silence was so great that they could hear the fall of the violets on the coffin. The grave was surrounded,—first by rows of school-children; behind them on one side the young women, on the other the young men of her Bible classes; and behind these again the elder women and men with whom she had read and prayed. She lay, after the service, completely strewn over with primroses and snow-drops showered upon her coffin. After all was