A few of us are going to attend this poor man's funeral--it would be too bad to allow a stranger to go to his grave unattended, especially after such a fate.

There'll be somebody representing the Dean and Chapter, and three or four principal townsmen, so he'll not be quite neglected.
And"-- here he hesitated and looked a little nervously at Mary, to whom he was telling all this, Dick having departed for school--"there's a little matter I wish you'd attend to--you'll do it better than I should.
The man seems to have been friendless; here, at any rate--no relations have come forward, in spite of the publicity--so--don't you think it would be rather--considerate, eh ?--to put a wreath, or a cross, or something of that sort on his grave--just to show--you know ?" "Very kind of you to think of it," said Mary.

"What do you wish me to do ?" "If you'd go to Gardales', the florists, and order--something fitting, you know," replied Ransford, "and afterwards--later in the day--take it to St.Wigbert's Churchyard--he's to be buried there--take it--if you don't mind--yourself, you know." "Certainly," answered Mary.

"I'll see that it's done." She would do anything that seemed good to Ransford--but all the same she wondered at this somewhat unusual show of interest in a total stranger.
She put it down at last to Ransford's undoubted sentimentality--the man's sad fate had impressed him.

And that afternoon the sexton at St.
Wigbert's pointed out the new grave to Miss Bewery and Mr.Sackville Bonham, one carrying a wreath and the other a large bunch of lilies.
Sackville, chancing to encounter Mary at the florist's, whither he had repaired to execute a commission for his mother, had heard her business, and had been so struck by the notion--or by a desire to ingratiate himself with Miss Bewery--that he had immediately bought flowers himself--to be put down to her account--and insisted on accompanying Mary to the churchyard.
Bryce heard of this tribute to John Braden next day--from Mrs.Folliot, Sackville Bonham's mother, a large lady who dominated certain circles of Wrychester society in several senses.