Scenes of Clerical Life

Chapter 25

The faces looked very hard and unmoved that surrounded Dempster's grave,

while old Mr. Crewe read the burial-service in his low, broken voice. The

pall-bearers were such men as Mr. Pittman, Mr. Lowme, and Mr. Budd--men

whom Dempster had called his friends while he was in life; and worldly

faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of

grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn

silence of night.

The one face that had sorrow in it was covered by a thick crape-veil, and

the sorrow was suppressed and silent. No one knew how deep it was; for

the thought in most of her neighbours' minds was, that Mrs. Dempster

could hardly have had better fortune than to lose a bad husband who had

left her the compensation of a good income. They f