So he glided up the short aisle with a sad religious smile, suited to the place, and inclined his lank back and his tall bald head toward the captain in ceremonious greeting as he approached. 'How d'ye do, Larkin? The fog makes one cough a little this evening.' Larkin's answer, thanks, and enquiries, came gravely in return. And with the same sad smile he looked round on the figures, some marble, some painted stone, of departed Brandons and Wylders, with garrulous epitaphs, who surrounded them in various costumes, quite a family group, in which the attorney was gratified to mingle. '_Ancestry_, Captain Lake--_your_ ancestry--noble assemblage--monuments and timber. Timber like the Brandon oaks, and monuments like these--these are things which, whatever else he may acquire, the _novus homo_, Captain Brandon Lake--the _parvenu_--can never command.' Mr. Jos. Larkin had a smattering of school Latin, and knew half-a-dozen French words, which he took out on occasion. 'Certainly our good people do occupy some space here; more regular attendants in church, than, I fear, they formerly were; and their virtues more remarked, perhaps, than before the stone-cutter was instructed to publish them with his chisel,' answered Lake, with one of his quiet sneers. 'Beautiful chapel this, Captain Lake--beautiful chapel, Sir,' said the attorney, again looking round with a dreary smile of admiration. But though his accents were engaging and he smiled--of course, a Sabbath-day smile--yet Captain Lake perceived that it was not the dove's but the rat's eyes that were doing duty under that tall bald brow. 'Solemn thoughts, Sir--solemn thoughts, Captain Lake--silent mentors, eloquent monitors!' And he waved his long lank hand toward the monumental groups. 'Yes,' said Lake, in the same mocking tone, that was low and sweet, and easily mistaken for something more amiable. 'You and they go capitally together--so solemn, and eloquent, and godly--capital fellows! _I_'m not half good enough for such company--and the place is growing rather cold--is not it?' 'A great many Wylders, Sir--a great many _Wylders_.' And the attorney dropped his voice, and paused at this emphasis, pointing a long finger toward the surrounding effigies. Captain Lake, after his custom, glared a single full look upon the attorney, sudden as the flash of a pair of guns from their embrasures in the dark; and he said quietly, with a wave of his cane in the same direction-- 'Yes, a precious lot of Wylders.' 'Is there a _Wylder_ vault here, Captain Brandon Lake?' 'Hanged if I know!--what the devil's that to you or me, Sir?' answered the captain, with a peevish sullenness. 'I was thinking, Captain Lake, whether in the event of its turning out that Mr. Mark Wylder was _dead_, it would be thought proper to lay his body here?' 'Dead, Sir!--and what the plague puts that in your head? You are corresponding with him--aren't you?'