sat many an hour on that tombstone. It is strange to think that no
one knows who sleeps beneath it. The 'Guide Book to Moleswich,'
though it gives the history of the church from the reign in which it
was first built, can only venture a guess that this tomb, the grandest
and oldest in the burial-ground, is tenanted by some member of a
family named Montfichet, that was once very powerful in the county,
and has become extinct since the reign of Henry VI. But," added Lily,
"there is not a letter of the name Montfichet left. I found out more
than any one else has done; I learned black-letter on purpose; look
here," and she pointed to a small spot in which the moss had been
removed. "Do you see those figures? are they not XVIII? and look
again, in what was once the line above the figures, ELE. It must have
been an Eleanor, who died at the age of eighteen--"

"I rather think it more probable that the figures refer to the date of
the death, 1318 perhaps; and so far as I can decipher black-letter,
which is more in my father's line than mine, I think it is AL, not EL,
and that it seems as if there had been a letter between L and the
second E, which is now effaced. The tomb itself is not likely to
belong to any powerful family then resident at the place. Their
monuments, according to usage, would have been within the
church,--probably in their own mortuary chapel."

"Don't try to destroy my fancy," said Lily, shaking her head; "you
cannot succeed, I know her history too well. She was young, and some
one loved her, and built over her the finest tomb he could afford; and
see how long the epitaph must have been! how much it must have spoken
in her praise and of his grief. And then he went his way, and the
tomb was neglected, and her fate forgotten."