ispered, whenever they could decently do so, about a strange
omission in the arrangements. The husband of the deceased was absent.
Members of the family and intimate friends were told by Daniel Jansenius
that the widower had acted in a blackguard way, and that the Janseniuses
did not care two-pence whether he came or stayed at home; that, but for
the indecency of the thing, they were just as glad that he was keeping
away. Others, who had no claim to be privately informed, made inquiries
of the undertaker's foreman, who said he understood the gentleman
objected to large funerals. Asked why, he said he supposed it was on the
ground of expense. This being met by a remark that Mr. Trefusis was very
wealthy, he added that he had been told so, but believed the money
had not come from the lady; that people seldom cared to go to a great
expense for a funeral unless they came into something good by the death;
and that some parties the more they had the more they grudged. Before
the funeral guests dispersed, the report spread by Mr. Jansenius's
brother had got mixed with the views of the foreman, and had given rise
to a story of Trefusis expressing joy at his wife's death with frightful
oaths in her father's house whilst she lay dead there, and refusing to
pay a farthing of her debts or funeral expenses.

Some days later, when gossip on the subject was subsiding, a fresh
scandal revived it. A literary friend of Mr. Jansenius's helped him
to compose an epitaph, and added to it a couple of pretty and touching
stanzas, setting forth that Henrietta's character had been one of rare
sweetness and virtue, and that her friends would never cease to sorrow
for her loss. A tradesman who described himself as a "monumental mason"
furnished a book of tomb designs, and Mr. Jansenius selected a highly
ornamental one, and proposed to defray half the cost of its erection.
Trefusis objected that the epitaph was untrue, and said that he did not
see why tombstones should be privileged to publish false statements. It
was reported that he had followed up his former misconduct by calling
his father-in-law a liar, and that he had ordered a common tombstone
from some cheap-jack at the East-end. He had, in fact, spoken
contemptuously of the monumental tradesman as an "exploiter" of labor,
and had asked a young working mason, a member of the International
Association, to design a monument for the gratification of Jansenius.

The mason, with much pains and m