ied in infancy,--sacrificed to the cruel
system which forbade the mother to suckle her babies. Four had lived
longer; Urian had been the first to die, Ughtred-Mortimar, Earl Ludlow,
the last.

My lady did not cry, Mrs. Medlicott said. She was quite composed; very
still, very silent. She put aside everything that savoured of mere
business: sent people to Mr. Horner for that. But she was proudly alive
to every possible form which might do honour to the last of her race.

In those days, expresses were slow things, and forms still slower. Before
my lady's directions could reach Vienna, my lord was buried. There was
some talk (so Mrs. Medlicott said) about taking the body up, and bringing
him to Hanbury. But his executors,--connections on the Ludlow
side,--demurred to this. If he were removed to England, he must be
carried on to Scotland, and interred with his Monkshaven forefathers. My
lady, deeply hurt, withdrew from the discussion, before it degenerated to
an unseemly contest. But all the more, for this understood mortification
of my lady's, did the whole village and estate of Hanbury assume every
outward sign of mourning. The church bells tolled morning and evening.
The church itself was draped in black inside. Hatchments were placed
everywhere, where hatchments could be put. All the tenantry spoke in
hushed voices for more than a week, scarcely daring to observe that all
flesh, even that of an Earl Ludlow, and the last of the Hanburys, was but
grass after all. The very Fighting Lion closed its front door, front
shutters it had none, and those who needed drink stole in at the back,
and were silent and maudlin over their cups, instead of riotous and
noisy. Miss Galindo's eyes were swollen up with crying, and she told me,
with a fresh burst of tears, that even hump-backed Sally had been found
sobbing over her Bible, and using a pocket-handkerchief for the first
time in her life; her aprons having hitherto stood her in the necessary
stead, but not being sufficiently in accordance with etiquette to be used
when mourning over an earl's premature decease.

If it was this way out of the Hall, "you might work it by the rule of
three," as Miss Galindo used to say, and judge what it was in the Hall.
We none of us spoke but in a whisper: we tried not to eat; and indeed the
shock had been so really great, and we did really care so much for my
lady, that for some days we had but little appetite. But after that, I
fe