"RING OUT YOUR BELLS! LET MOURNING SHOWS BE SPREAD!"


Three days after, a long and stately procession passed slowly through
the great gates, under the lofty Norman archway, bearing to the
Catheron vaults the body of Ethel, last lady Catheron.

A long and sad ceremonial! Why, it seemed only yesterday that that
mournful, passing bell had rung out the welcoming peal; but yesterday
since they had lit the bon-fires, and tossed their hats in the air,
and cheered with all their hearts and souls, the gallant husband and
lovely wife. For a "squire of high degree" to marry beneath him, is
something that goes home, warm and true, to every humble heart. Sir
Victor's tenantry had never been half so proud of him, as when he had
brought among them his low-born wife. It seemed but yesterday that all
the parish had seen her, walking up this very aisle, in pale, flowing
silks, and with the sweetest face the sun ever shone on, leaning on
her happy young husband's arm; and now they carried her dead--foully
murdered--to the open Catheron vault, and laid her to sleep forever
beside the high-born dames of the race who slept their last sleep
there.

"All men are equal on the turf and under it," once said a famous
sporting nobleman. Ethel Dobb, the London soap-boiler's daughter, took
her place to-day, among the dead daughters of earls and marquises,
their equal at last, by right divine of the great leveller, Death.

A great and solemn hush pervaded all ranks, sexes, and classes. Struck
down in her sleep, without a moment's warning, in her own home--a deep
murmur, that was like the murmur of an angry sea, ran through them as