Clark, of Westbury, a young and zealous divine, who
had ridden in haste to pray by the bedside of the expiring
minister. There was the nurse, no hired handmaiden of death, but
one whose calm affection had endured thus long in secrecy, in
solitude, amid the chill of age, and would not perish, even at
the dying hour. Who, but Elizabeth! And there lay the hoary head
of good Father Hooper upon the death pillow, with the black veil
still swathed about his brow, and reaching down over his face, so
that each more difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it to
stir. All through life that piece of crape had hung between him
and the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and
woman's love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his
own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the
gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of
eternity.
For some time previous, his mind had been confused, wavering
doubtfully between the past and the present, and hovering
forward, as it were, at intervals, into the indistinctness of the
world to come.
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