, at the head of Main street, saddened Miss Ray;
and she was glad to see the neat little slabs which of late years had
marked the graves of their departed ones. They strolled around the
Prospect Hill, or Unitarian Cemetery, near by, and wished to go into the
Catholic one on the same street; but, as Mrs. Gordon was anxious to see
some of the old headstones and epitaphs in the North burying-ground on
North Liberty street, and their time was limited, they went there
instead. When Tom saw her delight as she read on the old stones the date
of 1770, 1772, and some even earlier, he said that she must go out to
the ancient burial-ground on the hill near the water-works and see the
grave of John Gardner, Esq., who was buried there in 1706. As he said
this one of the public carriages happened to be within sight, and she
proposed that they take it and go immediately to that sacred spot. When
they arrived there her historic imagination knew no bounds; her
soliloquy partook of the sentiment--in kind only, not in degree--which
inspired Mark Twain when he wept over the grave of Adam. In the mean
while, Mr. Gordon had gone to the Wannacomet Waterworks, which supplied
the town with pure water from the old Washing-pond. He there noted in
his note-book that this important movement in the town's welfare was
another reason why investment in the island would be desirable.

As they started to go back to town from the burial-ground Tom wished
that they could drive to the south-west suburbs, to see the South and
also the colored burying-grounds, for he should feel better satisfied if
he could sec everything of a kind that there was! But Mrs. Gordon had
seen enough for one day, and so they drove to their boarding-house
instead.

The ringing of the sweet-toned church bell the next morning at seven
o'clock reminded Miss Ray of her desire to visit the tower which
contained it. She had noticed how it rang out three times during the
day, at seven, twelve, and nine o'clock, and, for the quiet Nantucket
town, she hoped that the old custom would never be dropped. And then
this bell had a peculiar attraction for her, for it was like the one
which was on her own church in Boston, the New Old South. She had been
greatly interested in reading that this "Old Spanish Bell," as it was
called, was brought from Lisbon in 1812; that it was stored in a cellar
for three years, when it was bought by subscription for about five
hundred dollars, and put in this tower