FUNERAL OF A HEROINE.
Early one pleasant May morning a silent funeral procession moved out of noisy London to the little cemetery at Isleworth. There was no hearse with waving plumes, no long line of carriages drawn by black horses. The body, that of a young servant-girl, was carried by sixteen members of the London Fire Brigade, in reliefs of four. The strong men walked with uncovered heads. Behind them came twenty girls, dressed in white, former companions and schoolmates of the dead. A thousand men, women and children, bearing wreaths and flowers, followed them. They were all speechless, but the tears in their eyes gave eloquent expression to their deep sorrow. The cemetery was reached, the silent mourners knelt on the green turf in prayer, the service for the burial of the dead was read in measured cadences, the coffin was lowered into the earth, and the grave half filled with flowers.
Who was the honored dead ? Not one who had " marched to glory or a grave ” on a foreign battle-field. There was none of the pomp of war surrounding the death of this person. She met her heroic death with no banners waving, no bugles sounding, no commander directing, no comrades cheering. Probably she had never read the couplet of Tennyson :
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