164 The Trotter. 



bedside where lay the only human being he had ever really loved 

 the only true friend he had ever possessed on earth 3 but sat with 

 his dead wife's hand convulsively clasped in his own, without 

 speaking a word. Not a tear did he shed not a lamentation 

 escaped him ; but the tightly compressed lips, the heavy breathing, 

 the fixed, stern, determined look, and the spasmodic shiver which 

 would every now and then convulse his whole frame, all sufficiently 

 indicated the fierce struggle that was raging in his breast. 



Early in the morning the body was removed to Robson's, where 

 it lay till the coroner's inquest was over. They then carried it to 

 the Grange to place it in the family vault j and the poor, low-born 

 actress was laid in the same grave, side by side, with the mouldering 

 remains of haughty beauties who, during their lives, would scarcely 

 have deemed her worthy to wipe the dust from their feet. Sam 

 was the only one of that proud family who had formed, what the 

 world is pleased to call, a mesalliance ; and of all the arrogant mis- 

 tresses that had ever yet ruled over Ashby Grange, not one 

 but could boast of a pedigree as faultless as her face ; but 

 there was not one among them all who had ever played the true 

 woman's part like her on whom the vault was just closing. Not one 

 but might have felt honoured by the acquaintanceship of as true a 

 lady, and a woman as beautiful as the most beautiful among them 

 all, and whose only earthly fault lay in her obscure origin. 



The Grange was now no longer a home for Sam, and, leaving 

 his poor idiot son in the charge of the good clergyman, he went up 

 to London on the day after the funeral an altered, but a broken- 

 hearted man. The only mementoes which he carried away with 

 him were his wife's picture and that of old Morgan j and from that 

 day he never saw the old Grange again. He gave notice to the 

 mortgagees to foreclose the mortgage at once, and sell the estates ; 

 and the captain took possession of all the personal property under 

 his bill of sale. All was, however, brought to the hammer, except 

 old Morgan, whom the captain claimed as an independent gift from 

 the squire j and no one gainsayed him. The estate realized a far 

 larger price than was expected, on account of the anticipated rail- 



