The wind raged, and the snow whirled all about his
grave and in it. The coffin was white before the first clod of earth was
thrown on it, and the mourners were driven out of the churchyard, when
the solemn service was over, by such gusts of storm and whirling wind as
they could hardly stand against.
His will was read. He had hardly anything to leave. His directions were
very simple and few, and there was a little desk locked up in a cabinet
that nobody thought about, and that the one person who could have opened
it supposed to concern exclusively himself. So when he came, six months
after, and looked about him with regretful affection; when he had put
the old man's portrait up in a place of honour, and looked to the paying
of all the debts, for everything, even to the furniture, was now his
own; when he had read the will, and sealed up all such papers as he
thought his half-brother Valentine might afterwards want to refer to--he
betook himself to his own particular domain, his long room in the top of
the house. There, locking himself in, he opened his cabinet, and taking
out the little desk, sat down to look for and read this letter.
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