After the departure of all my kindred, I felt, indeed, how completely I was left alone in the world. Lucy passed the night at the rectory, to keep her brother company, and good Mr. Hardinge, though _thinking_ he remained with me to offer sympathy and consolation, found so many demands on his time, that I saw but little of him. It is possible he understood me sufficiently well to know that solitude and reflection, while the appearance of the first was avoided, were better for one of my temperament than any set forms of condolence. At any rate, he was at hand, while he said but little to me on the subject of my loss.
At last I got through the day; and a long and dreary day it was to me. The evening came, bland, refreshing, bringing with it the softer light of a young moon. I was walking on the lawn, when the beauty of the night brought Grace and her tastes vividly to my mind, and, by a sudden impulse, I was soon swiftly walking towards her now silent grave. The highways around Clawbonny were never much frequented; but at this hour, and so soon after the solemn procession it had so lately seen, no one was met on the road towards the church-yard. It was months, indeed, after the funeral, that any of the slaves ventured into the latter by night; and, even during the day, they approached it with an awe that nothing could have inspired but the death of a Wallingford. Perhaps it was owing to my increased age and greater observation, but I fancied that these simple beings felt the death of their young mistress more than they had felt that of my mother.
St. Michael's church-yard is beautifully ornamented with flourishing cedars. These trees had been cultivated with care, and formed an appropriate ornament for the place. A fine cluster of them shaded the graves of my family, and a rustic seat had been placed beneath their branches, by order of my mother, who had been in the habit of passing hours in meditation at the grave of her husband. Grace and I, and Lucy, had often repaired to the same place at night, after my mother's death, and there we used to sit many an hour, in deep silence; or, if utterance were given to a thought, it was in a respectful whisper. As I now approached this seat, I had a bitter satisfaction in remembering that Rupert had never accompanied us in these pious little pilgrimages. Even in the day of her greatest ascendancy, Grace had been unable to enlist her admirer in an act so repugnant to his innate character. As for Lucy, her own family lay on one side of that cluster of cedars, as mine lay on the other; and often had I seen the dear young creature weeping, as her eyes were riveted on the graves of relatives she had never known. But _my_ mother had been _her_ mother, and for this friend she felt an attachment almost as strong as that which was entertained by ourselves. I am not certain I ought not to say, an attachment _quite_ as strong as our own.
