Alas! that the body was not there could
no more justify her than Milton in letting her
"frail thoughts dally with false surmise."
With him, too, she might well add--
"Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away."
But God had them in his teaching, and all I could do was to ask them to be
my guests till the funeral and the following Sunday were over. To this
they kindly consented, and I took them to my wife, who received them like
herself, and had in a few minutes made them at home with her, to which no
doubt their sorrow tended, for that brings out the relations of humanity
and destroys its distinctions.
The next morning a Scotchman of a very decided type, originally from
Aberdeen, but resident in Liverpool, appeared, seeking the form of his
daughter. I had arranged that whoever came should be brought to me first. I
went with him to the church. He was a tall, gaunt, bony man, with long arms
and huge hands, a rugged granite-like face, and a slow ponderous utterance,
which I had some difficulty in understanding.
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