A Broken Blossom Vol. 1 of 3 by Florence Marryat

Before I went to bed that night I wrote to Mr. Warrington, telling him I had decided to accept Mr. Lovett's offer; and before another fortnight was over my head, I was on my way to St. Pucelle. There was no reason for delay, and the few things I had to do, I hurried over as quickly as possible. We had always lived in furnished rooms; one week's notice was sufficient to set me free from them. The books and articles that had belonged especially to my mother found house-room with my kind friend Mrs. Sandilands. The only possessions I carried away with me were her Bible and her portrait and my own limited wardrobe. I wanted to begin life anew, cumbered with as few reminders of the past as possible.

I did not think, though, that I should find parting with the grave in Norwood Cemetery so hard. I had believed myself to be too philosophical to care about leaving that, any more than the old books that Mrs. Sandilands had taken charge of. But when the time came to say good-bye to it, and that which lay in it, I found I was as stupid, commonplace and non-reasoning an animal as ever wept above an inanimate object that could neither see, hear, nor respond.