There was a certain little gentleman who came to our church, a brewer by profession, and a major in the militia by choice, who was so small and strutted so much that to the insolent observation of boyhood he was "exactly like" our new bantam cock.

Young people are very apt to overhear what is not intended for their knowledge, and somehow or other we learned that he was "courting" (as his third wife) a lady of our parish.

His former wives are buried in our churchyard.

Over the first he had raised an obelisk of marble, so costly and affectionate that it had won the hearts of his neighbours in general, and of his second wife in particular.

When she died the gossips wondered whether the Major would add her name to that of her predecessor, or "go to the expense" of a new monument.