You have heard, Sir, how universally my dear cousin was beloved. By the
poor and middling sort especially, no young lady was ever so much
beloved. And with reason: she was the common patroness of all the honest
poor in her neighbourhood.

It is natural for us, in every deep and sincere grief, to interest all we
know in what is so concerning to ourselves. The servants of the family,
it seems, had told their friends, and those their's, that though, living,
their dear young lady could not be received nor looked upon, her body was
permitted to be brought home. The space of time was so confined, that
those who knew when she died, must easily guess near the time the hearse
was to come. A hearse, passing through country villages, and from
London, however slenderly attended, (for the chariot, as I have said,
waited upon poor Mrs. Norton,) takes every one's attention. Nor was it
hard to guess whose this must be, though not adorned by escutcheons, when
the cross-roads to Harlowe-place were taken, as soon as it came within
six miles of it; so that the hearse, and the solemn tolling of the bell,
had drawn together at least fifty, or the neighbouring men, women, and
children, and some of good appearance. Not a soul of them, it seems,
with a dry eye, and each lamenting the death of this admired lady, who,
as I am told, never stirred out, but somebody was the better for her.

These, when the coffin was taken out of the hearse, crowding about it,
hindered, for a few moments, its being carried in; the young people
struggling who should bear it; and yet, with respectful whisperings,
rather than clamorous contention. A mark of veneration I had never
before seen paid, upon any occasion in all my travels, from the
under-bred many, from whom noise is generally inseparable in all their
emulations.