ge the fourteenth baron, together with two or three
others, all of more recent date than the great bulk of coffins piled
there, had, for want of room, been placed at the end of the vault on
tressels, and not in niches like the others. These it was necessary to
remove, to form behind them the chamber in which they were ultimately to
be deposited. Stephen, finding the place and proceedings in keeping with
the sombre colours of his mind, waited there still.

'Simeon, I suppose you can mind poor Lady Elfride, and how she ran away
with the actor?' said John Smith, after awhile. 'I think it fell upon
the time my father was sexton here. Let us see--where is she?'

'Here somewhere,' returned Simeon, looking round him.

'Why, I've got my arms round the very gentlewoman at this moment.'
He lowered the end of the coffin he was holding, wiped his face,
and throwing a morsel of rotten wood upon another as an indicator,
continued: 'That's her husband there. They was as fair a couple as you
should see anywhere round about; and a good-hearted pair likewise. Ay, I
can mind it, though I was but a chiel at the time. She fell in love with
this young man of hers, and their banns were asked in some church in
London; and the old lord her father actually heard 'em asked the three
times, and didn't notice her name, being gabbled on wi' a host of
others. When she had married she told her father, and 'a fleed into a
monstrous rage, and said she shouldn' hae a farthing. Lady Elfride said
she didn't think of wishing it; if he'd forgie her 'twas all she asked,
and as for a living, she was content to play plays with her husband.
This frightened the old lord, and 'a gie'd 'em a house to live in, and a
great garden, and a little field or two, and a carriage, and a good
few guineas. Well, the poor thing died at her first gossiping, and her
husband--who was as tender-hearted a man as ever eat meat, and would
have died for her--went wild in his mind, and broke his heart (so 'twas
said). Anyhow, they were buried the same day--father and mother--but the
baby lived. Ay, my lord's family made much of that man then, and put him
here with his wife, and there in the corner the man is now. The Sunday
after there was a funeral sermon: the text was, "Or ever the silver cord
be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken;" and when 'twas preaching the
men drew their hands across their eyes several times, and every woman
cried out loud.'

'And what became of the baby?' s