"Ah, true! Well, after the death of his lady, Ernest Van Der Vaughan removed back into the old house, and closed up the new one. In the course of a few weeks he advertised the property for sale, but months passed, and no purchaser appeared willing to give him the price set upon the estate. "A year went by, and Mr. Van Der Vaughan made the acquaintance of a young lady, Alice Brightwell, who was, it is said, as strong a contrast as possible to his late wife; for Alice was young, and fair and gay, loved music, dancing and company, and had not a regret, a care, or an ambition in the world. "It must have been the attraction of antagonism that united the hearts of this dark and sombre man of thirty, and this laughing, careless girl of nineteen, for it is said that they were greatly attached to each other. "At all events, after a brief courtship, and a briefer engagement they were married; and when Mr. Van Der Vaughan proposed to her, as he had to his first wife, that they should emigrate to the West, she, in her gay, adventurous love of novelty, eagerly assented, notwithstanding that to go with him thither, she must leave her parents, brothers and sisters. "Once more the property came into the market, and my father, seeing the advertisement, and desiring to remove to Virginia, opened a correspondence with the proprietor, then made a visit of inspection, and finally became the purchaser of the estates. "When the transfer was about to be made, my father, pointing to the family graveyard, inquired of Mr. Van Der Vaughan whether he did not feel an unwillingness to sell that piece of ground, and told him that he might readily make an exception of that plot, and retain it in his own right. "But Mr. Van Der Vaughan replied that he did not really care to own a foot of ground on the estate. "My father then told him that if he would like to retain the graveyard it should make no difference in the price of the whole already agreed upon--for my father, you see, Alice, felt a sort of hesitation in buying the place without exempting the bones of the old family from the purchase. "But Mr. Van Der Vaughan had no scruples of the sort. "'No,' he said, 'Mr. Legare, if I were to retain possession of the graveyard, I and my heirs after me, would own an acre of ground in the very midst of your estate, which, as it stands now, might make no difference, as I shall never return to claim it, and could make no use of it if I did; but which might embarrass you very much should you ever wish to sell the property.' "That was good reasoning enough, I suppose, and, at all events, the sale was completed without the exception. "We moved into the house, and Mr. Van Der Vaughan and his bride departed for Kansas." "And he really, when he might just as easily have avoided it, sold the bones of his wife and her ancestors to a stranger!" "Even so, my dear Agnes, and believe me, that we all felt as much shocked as you look."