CHAPTER IV.
SWARMS OF CHILDREN.
"As our hope is that this our sister doth."-- _Burial Service._ And now was to take place that ceremony to which Madam Melcombe's thoughts had so often been directed.

She had tried to arrange that it should be imposing, and imposing indeed it was, but not by virtue of the profusion of the refreshment, not by the presence of the best hearse from the county town, the best mourning coaches, the grandest plumes, but by the unsolicited attendance of a great company of people come together to do homage to a life distinguished by its misfortunes, its patience, and its charities.
She had never been able to think of herself as taking part in that ceremony unconsciously; her orders had always been given as if by one who felt that if things were meanly done she should know it; but in taking care that refreshments should be provided for all the funeral attendants, she little thought that the whole parish, men and women, were to follow her, and most of them in tears.

But it was so.

The tenants had been invited; they walked after her in scarf and band, two and two, and after them, in such mourning as they could afford, came all the people, and pressed on in a procession that seemed to the real mourners almost endless, to look down upon her coffin and obtain a place near her grave.
It was out of doors, and all nature was in white.

Round the churchyard pear-trees grew, and leaned their laden branches over its walls.
Pear-trees, apple-trees, and cherries filled the valley and crowded one another up all the hills.