The smell of the varnish was stronger than that of the clover-blossoms, or the roses or honey-suckles outside in the fields and gardens, and about the piazzas.
Upon the wall hung the portrait of Christopher Burt at the age of ten, standing in clean clothes, holding a hoop in one hand and a book in the other.

It was sixty-four years before that the portrait was painted, and if one had come searching for that boy he would have found him--by lifting that lid he would have seen him; but in those sunken features, that white hair, that startling stillness of repose, would he have recognized the boy of the soft eyes and the tender heart, whose June clover had not yet blossomed?
There was a creaking, crackling sound upon the gravel in the avenue, and then a carriage emerged from behind the hedge, and another, and another.
They were family carriages, and stopped at the front door, which was swung wide open.

There was no sound but the letting down of steps and slamming of doors, and the rolling away of wheels.

People with grave faces, which they seemed to have put on for the occasion as they put on white gloves for weddings, stepped out and came up the steps.

They were mostly clad in sober colors, and said nothing, or conversed in a low, murmuring tone, or in whispers.