ay, "Who are you, young man, to come
even asking about her?"--then I never thought but that everybody in
Watchett town must know all about the tombstone of the Countess of
Dugal.

This, however, proved otherwise. For Lord Dugal had never lived at
Watchett Grange, as their place was called; neither had his name become
familiar as its owner. Because the Grange had only devolved to him by
will, at the end of a long entail, when the last of the Fitz-Pains died
out; and though he liked the idea of it, he had gone abroad, without
taking seisin. And upon news of his death, John Jones, a rich gentleman
from Llandaff, had taken possession, as next of right, and hushed up all
the story. And though, even at the worst of times, a lady of high rank
and wealth could not be robbed, and as bad as murdered, and then buried
in a little place, without moving some excitement, yet it had been given
out, on purpose and with diligence, that this was only a foreign lady
travelling for her health and pleasure, along the seacoast of England.
And as the poor thing never spoke, and several of her servants and her
baggage looked so foreign, and she herself died in a collar of lace
unlike any made in England, all Watchett, without hesitation, pronounced
her to be a foreigner. And the English serving man and maid, who might
have cleared up everything, either were bribed by Master Jones, or else
decamped of their own accord with the relics of the baggage. So the poor
Countess of Dugal, almost in sight of her own grand house, was buried in
an unknown grave, with her pair of infants, without a plate, without a
tombstone (worse than all) without a tear, except from the hired Italian
woman.

Surely my poor Lorna came of an ill-starred family.

Now in spite of all this, if I had only taken Benita with me, or even
told her what I wished, and craved her directions, there could have been
no trouble. But I do assure you that among the stupid people at Watchett
(compared with whom our folk of Oare, exceeding dense though being, are
as Hamlet against Dogberry) what with one of them and another, and the
firm conviction of all the town that I could be come only to wrestle, I
do assure you (as I said before) that my wits almost went out of me.
And what vexed me yet more about it was, that I saw my own mistake, in
coming myself to seek out the matter, instead of sending some unknown
person. For my face and form were known at that time (and still are so)
to nine p