you might have taken it to be sunday in prior’s ash—except that sundays in ordinary did not look so gloomy. the shops were closed, a drizzling rain fell, and the heavy bell of all souls’ was booming out at solemn intervals. it was tolling for the funeral of thomas godolphin. morning and night, from eight o’clock to nine, had it so tolled since his death; but on this, the last day, it did not cease with nine o’clock, but tolled on, and would so toll until he should be in his last home. people had closed their shutters with one accord as the clock struck ten; some indeed had never opened them at all: if they had not paid him due respect always in life, they paid it to him in death. ah, it was only for a time, in the first brunt of the shock, that prior’s ash mistook thomas godolphin. he had gone to his long home; to his last resting-place: he had gone to the merciful god to whom (it may surely be said!) he had belonged in life; and prior’s ash mourned for him.

you will deem this a sad story; perhaps bring a reproach upon me for recording it. that bell has tolled out all too often in its history; and this is not the first funeral you have seen at all souls’. if i wrote only according to my own experiences of life, my stories would be always sad ones. life wears different aspects for us, and its cares and its joys are unequally allotted out. at least they so appear to be. one glances up heavily from the burdens heaped upon him, and sees others[424] without care basking in the sunshine. but i often wonder whether those who seem so gay, whose path seems to be cast on the broad, sunny road of pleasure,—whether they have not a skeleton in their closet. i look, i say, and wonder, marvelling what the reality may be. nothing but gaiety, nothing but lightness, nothing, to all appearance, but freedom from care. is it really so? perhaps; with some—a very few. is it well for those few? the broad road of pleasure, down which so many seem to travel, is not the safest road to a longer home, or