For he had been convinced at last--strange as it may seem, until we call to mind how the strongest convictions are produced by the weakest logic--at last he could no longer hope to see his Grace again; because he had beheld her tombstone. Having made up his mind to go to church that very Sunday morning, in spite of all Widow Hookham could do to stop him, he had spied a new stone in the graveyard corner sacred to the family of Oglander. The old man went up to see what it was, and nobody liked to follow him. And nobody was surprised that he did not show his white head at the chancel-door; though the parson waited five minutes for him, being exceeding loth to waste ten lines, which he had interlarded into a sermon of thirty years back, for the present sad occasion. For the old Squire sat on his grandfather's tombstone (a tabular piece of memorial, suited to an hospitable man; where all his descendants might sit around, and have their dinners served to them), and he leaned his shaven chin on the head of his stout oak staff, and he took off his hat, and let his white hair fall about. He fixed his still bright eyes on the tombstone of his daughter, and tried to fasten his mind there also, and to make out how old she was. He was angry with himself for not being able to tell to a day without thinking; but days, and years, and thoughts, and doings of quiet love quite slipping by, and spreading without ruffle, had left him little to lay hold of as a knotted record. Therefore he sat with his chin on his stick, and had no sense of church-time, until the choir (which comprised seven Crippses) bellowed out an anthem, which must have shaken their grandfathers in their graves; unless in their time they had done the same. In this great uproar and applause, which always travelled for half a mile, the Squire had made his escape from the graveyard; and then he had gone home without a word and eaten his dinner, because he must when the due time came for it. And now, being filled with substantial faith that his household was nicely enjoying itself, he was come to his bower to think and wonder, and perhaps by-and-by to fall fast asleep, but never awake to bright hope again. To this relief and mild incline of gentle age, his head was bowing and his white hair settling down, according as the sun, or wind, or clouds, or time of day desired, when some one darkened half his light, and there stood Mary Hookham. Mary had the newest of all new spring fashions on her head, and breast, and waist, and everywhere. A truly spirited girl was she, as well as a very handy one; and she never thought twice of a sixpence or shilling, if a soiled paper-pattern could be had for it. And now she was busy with half a guinea, kindly beginning to form its impress on her moist hard-working palm. "He have had a time of it!" she exclaimed, as her master began to gaze around. "Oh my, what a time of it he have had!"