Let us return to unite and conclude our story.  In June, 1788, a female of uncommon beauty of person, yet with an oppressed and melancholy bearing, suddenly appeared at the old Bell Tavern in Danvers, Massachusetts, (a drawing of which is here introduced.) She was habited in black, and was seldom seen abroad, never except alone, and at twilight, when she was observed to wander as far as the old burying ground hard by, and there to pause at its entrance, gazing long and earnestly upon its silent, scattered mounds, at length retracing her steps with the same melancholy gait and air.

Here she remained nearly a month, discovering to none her real name or situation.  She passed her time in writing, and occasionally playing upon a guitar, which was the only companion of her solitude.  After remaining there about two weeks a chaise was seen to pause before the door, upon the lintel of which had secretly been traced in chalk, as it afterwards appeared, the letters “E.W.”  A gentleman hastily alighted, and was also observed through the darkness of the evening to examine the casing of the door, and then return to the chaise and drive rapidly away.

The opinion was, by those who were cognizant of the fact, that this was a secret, preconcerted sign by which the lover should recognize the place of her retreat; and being too faintly drawn, through the darkness of the night he failed to discover the characters.

From this time, however, the spirits of the stranger evidently sunk; and in two weeks more birth and death had followed each other, and the grave had closed over all.

This stranger had, in her peculiar situation, tenderly won upon the sympathies of a few kind-hearted individuals who had made their way to her, one of whom, a Mrs. Southwick, lived directly opposite the Bell Tavern.  These were with her in her last great agony, in which all sense of guilt was lost in pity.  Mrs. S. has related that no word of complaint or accusation was heard to fall from her lips, while the spirit seemed brightening with an unearthly hope, till what was charming in life was indescribably lovely in death.  Thus they laid the beautiful stranger in the saintly robes of the sepulchre without censure and without accusation, not knowing how painfully she was mourned and missed, as a star shut out of vision by clouds and storm, in the home of her childhood and in the heart of a widowed mother.

She had passed under the assumed name of Walker while at the Bell Tavern of Danvers, and her wardrobe was found marked with the corresponding initials, “E.W.,” although applying to her real name as well.  These facts, in connection with her death, were immediately published in the Boston and Salem journals, and her friends advertised to appear; and thus were her real name and place of residence elicited.

A short time afterwards, and a stranger came and caused to be erected in the old burying ground in Danvers, on the spot where she was interred, two “gray stones,” after the manner of Ossian, with the touching inscription which this volume records; and the feet of strangers, moved by pity and humanity, have worn a path to her grave which he who covets most in the world’s memory might even envy.