While just in advance strode the Padre, repeating the Latin service for the dead, and attended by four boys--two bearing censers, one a cross, and the other holy water.

With indecent haste they pressed forward, passing through the church, and resting the bier for a moment on the altar, while an Ave Maria was repeated.

At a sign from the Padre, the procession moved on to the churchyard, and, without further ceremony, the body deposited in consecrated ground.

Holy water was sprinkled profusedly around, and then all departed, leaving him to sleep undisturbed the last dreamless sleep.
Night found Inez sitting alone by her dreary, deserted hearth.

Father, mother, sister, cousin, all had passed on before her; and the last of her house, she mused in her lonely home.