The date of the year and month (which showed that many weeks had not elapsed since the death of the deceased) and the initials G.D.were all that was engraved upon the stone.

Beside this tomb was one of a more pompous description, to the memory of a Mrs.Douglas, which had with the simple tumulus nothing in common, unless the initial letter of the surname corresponding with the latter initial on the neighbouring gravestone, might authorize any connection between them, not supported by that similitude of style usually found in the cenotaphs of the same family: the one, indeed, might have covered the grave of a humble villager--the other, the resting-place of the lady of the manor.
I found, therefore, no clue for the labyrinth of surmise: and I went home, more vexed and disappointed with my day's expedition than I liked to acknowledge to myself.
Lord Vincent met me in the hall.

"Delighted to see you," said he, "I have just been to--, (the nearest town) in order to discover what sort of savages abide there.

Great preparations for a ball--all the tallow candles in the town are bespoken--and I heard a most uncivilized fiddle, "'Twang short and sharp, like the shrill swallow's cry.'" The one milliner's shop was full of fat squiresses, buying muslin ammunition, to make the ball go off; and the attics, even at four o'clock, were thronged with rubicund damsels, who were already, as Shakspeare says of waves in a storm, "'Curling their monstrous heads.'".