A physician was immediately sent for: but on the first moment of beholding the corse, he declared that Elvira’s recovery was beyond the power of art. He proceeded therefore to give his assistance to Antonia, who by this time was truly in need of it. She was conveyed to bed, while the landlady busied herself in giving orders for Elvira’s burial. Dame Jacintha was a plain good kind of woman, charitable, generous, and devout: but her intellects were weak, and she was a miserable slave to fear and superstition. She shuddered at the idea of passing the night in the same house with a dead body: she was persuaded that Elvira’s ghost would appear to her, and no less certain that such a visit would kill her with fright. From this persuasion, she resolved to pass the night at a neighbour’s, and insisted that the funeral should take place the next day.

St. Clare’s cemetery being the nearest, it was determined that Elvira should be buried there. Dame Jacintha engaged to defray every expense attending the burial. She knew not in what circumstances Antonia was left, but from the sparing manner in which the family had lived, she concluded them to be indifferent.