Well, how good it was to be able to carry that gracious memory away with me!

I approached England the next morning, with the wide highway of salt water all to myself.

There were ships in the harbor, at Dover, but they were naked as to sails, and there was no sign of life about them. It was Sunday; yet at Canterbury the streets were empty; strangest of all, there was not even a priest in sight, and no stroke of a bell fell upon my ear. The mournfulness of death was everywhere. I couldn’t understand it. At last, in the further edge of that town I saw a small funeral procession — just a family and a few friends following a coffin — no priest; a funeral without bell, book, or candle; there was a church there close at hand, but they passed it by weeping, and did not enter