He died as he had latterly lived--wholly alone and friendless.

He had no relatives--or if he had they did not acknowledge him.

The coroner's jury found certain memoranda upon his body and about the premises which revealed a fact not suspected by the villagers before-viz., that Laura was not the child of Mr.and Mrs.
Hawkins.
The gossips were soon at work.

They were but little hampered by the fact that the memoranda referred to betrayed nothing but the bare circumstance that Laura's real parents were unknown, and stopped there.

So far from being hampered by this, the gossips seemed to gain all the more freedom from it.