Four days after these curious incidents a funeral started from Canterville Chase at about eleven o’clock at night.  The hearse was drawn¹ by eight black horses, each of which carried on its head a great tuft of nodding ostrich-plumes, and the leaden coffin² was covered by a rich purple pall³, on which was embroidered⁴ in gold the Canterville coat-of-arms.  By the side of the hearse and the coaches walked the servants with lighted torches, and the whole procession was wonderfully impressive.  Lord Canterville was the chief mourner, having come up specially⁵ from Wales to attend the funeral, and sat in the first carriage along with little Virginia.  Then came the United States Minister and his wife, then Washington and the three boys, and in the last carriage was Mrs. Umney.  It was generally felt that, as she had been frightened by the ghost for more than fifty years of her life, she had a right to see the last of him.  A deep grave had been dug in the corner of the churchyard, just under the old yew-tree, and the service was read in the most impressive manner by the Rev⁶. Augustus Dampier.  When the ceremony was over, the servants, according to an old custom observed in the Canterville family, extinguished their torches, and, as the coffin was being lowered into the grave, Virginia stepped forward and laid on it a large cross made of white and pink almond-blossoms.  As she did so, the moon came out from behind a cloud, and flooded with its silent silver the little churchyard, and from a distant copse a nightingale began to sing.  She thought of the ghost’s description of the Garden of Death, her eyes became dim with tears, and she hardly spoke⁷ a word during the drive home.