The wine and spirits again circulated, and the dumb show of greeting was anew interchanged.

The grandame a second time took a glass in her hand, drank its contents, and exclaimed, with a sort of laugh,--"Ha! ha! I hae tasted wine twice in ae day--Whan did I that before, think ye, cummers ?--Never since"-- and the transient glow vanishing from her countenance, she set the glass down, and sunk upon the settle from whence she had risen to snatch at it.
As the general amazement subsided, Mr.Oldbuck, whose heart bled to witness what he considered as the errings of the enfeebled intellect struggling with the torpid chill of age and of sorrow, observed to the clergyman that it was time to proceed with the ceremony.

The father was incapable of giving directions, but the nearest relation of the family made a sign to the carpenter, who in such cases goes through the duty of the undertaker, to proceed in his office.

The creak of the screw-nails presently announced that the lid of the last mansion of mortality was in the act of being secured above its tenant.

The last act which separates us for ever, even from the mortal relies of the person we assemble to mourn, has usually its effect upon the most indifferent, selfish, and hard-hearted.