“You are not thinking of parting with him?” said Ellinor, jealous for Dixon.

“Oh, no; he and I are capital friends.  And I believe Mrs. Osbaldistone herself would never consent to his leaving us.  But some ladies, you know, like a little more subserviency in manner than our friend Dixon can boast.”

Ellinor made no reply.  They were entering the painted flower garden, hiding the ghastly memory.  She could not speak.  She felt as if, with all her striving, she could not move—­just as one does in a nightmare—­but she was past the place even as this terror came to its acme; and when she came to herself, Mr. Osbaldistone was still blandly talking, and saying—­

“It is now a reward for our obedience to your wishes, Miss Wilkins, for if the projected railway passes through the ash-field yonder we should have been perpetually troubled with the sight of the trains; indeed, the sound would have been much more distinct than it will be now coming through the interlacing branches.  Then you will not go in, Miss Wilkins?” Mrs. Osbaldistone desired me to say how happy—­“Ah!  I can understand such feelings—­Certainly, certainly; it is so much the shortest way to the town, that we elder ones always go through the stable-yard; for young people, it is perhaps not quite so desirable.  Ha!  Dixon,” he continued, “on the watch for the Miss Ellinor we so often hear of!  This old man,” he continued to Ellinor, “is never satisfied with the seat of our young ladies, always comparing their way of riding with that of a certain missy—­”

“I cannot help it, sir; they’ve quite a different style of hand, and sit all lumpish-like.  Now, Miss Ellinor, there—­”

“Hush, Dixon,” she said, suddenly aware of why the old servant was not popular with his mistress.  “I suppose I may be allowed to ask for Dixon’s company for an hour or so; we have something to do together before we leave.”

The consent given, the two walked away, as by previous appointment, to Hamley churchyard, where he was to point out to her the exact spot where he wished to be buried.  Trampling over the long, rank grass, but avoiding passing directly over any of the thickly-strewn graves, he made straight for one spot—­a little space of unoccupied ground close by, where Molly, the pretty scullery-maid, lay: 

   Sacred to the Memory of
      MARY GREAVES. 
   Born 1797.  Died 1818. 
   “We part to meet again.”

“I put this stone up over her with my first savings,” said he, looking at it; and then, pulling out his knife, he began to clean out the letters.  “I said then as I would lie by her.  And it’ll be a comfort to think you’ll see me laid here.  I trust no one’ll be so crabbed as to take a fancy to this ’ere spot of ground.”