Such was the inscription which now, for six months, had met the eyes of the inhabitants of Stowbury, on a large, dazzlingly white marble monument, the first that was placed in the Church-yard of the New Church.  What motive induced Mr. Ascott to inter his wife here—­whether it was a natural wish to lay her, and some day lay beside her, in their native earth; or the less creditable desire of showing how rich he had become, and of joining his once humble name, even on a tombstone, with one of the oldest names in the annals of Stowbury—­nobody could find out.  Probably nobody cared.

The Misses Leaf were content that he should do as he pleased in the matter:  he had shown strong but not exaggerated grief at his loss; if any remorse mingled therewith, Selina’s sisters happily did not know it.  Nobody ever did know the full history of things except Elizabeth, and she kept it to herself.  So the family skeleton was buried quietly in Mrs. Ascott’s grave.

Peter Ascott showed, in his coarse fashion, much sympathy and consideration for his wife’s sisters.  He had them staying in the house till a week after the funeral was over, and provided them with the deepest and handsomest mourning.  He even, in a formal way took counsel with them as to the carrying out of Mrs. Ascott’s wishes, and the retaining of Elizabeth in charge of the son and heir, which was accordingly settled.  And then they went back to their old life at Richmond, and the widower returned to his solitary bachelor ways.  He looked as usual; went to and from the City as usual; and his brief married life seemed to have passed away from him like a dream.

Not altogether a dream.  Gradually he began to awake to the consciousness of an occasional child’s cry in the house—­that large, silent, dreary house, where he was once more the sole, solitary master.  Sometimes, when he came in from church of Sundays, he would mount another flight of stairs, walk into the nursery at the top of the house, and stare with distant curiosity at the little creature in Elizabeth’s arms, pronounce it a “fine child, and did her great credit!” and then walk down again.  He never seemed to consider it as his child, this poor old bachelor of so many years’ standing; he had outgrown apparently all sense of the affections or the duties of a father.  Whether they ever would come into him; whether, after babyhood was passed, he would begin to take an interest in the little creature who throve and blossomed into beauty—­which, as if watched by guardian angles, dead mothers’ children often seem to do—­was a source of earnest speculation to Elizabeth.

In the mean time he treated both her and the baby with extreme consideration, allowed her to do just as she liked, and gave her indefinite sums of money to expend upon the nursery.

When summer came, and the doctor ordered change of air, Mr. Ascott consented to her suggestion of taking a lodging for herself and baby near baby’s aunts at Richmond; only desiring that the lodging should be as handsome as could be secured, and that every other Sunday she should bring up his son to spend the day at Russell Square.