Bradford (late Joanna Grice), Milliner and Dressmaker._
Regardless of rain, and droppings from eaves that trickled heavily down
his hat and coat, Mat stood motionless, reading and re-reading these
inscriptions from the opposite side of the way. Though the whole man,
from top to toe, was the very impersonation of firmness, he
nevertheless hesitated most unnaturally now. At one moment he seemed to
be on the point of entering the shop before him--at another, he turned
half round towards the churchyard which he had left behind him. At last
he decided to go back to the churchyard, and retraced his steps
accordingly.
He entered quickly by the gate at which he had delayed before; and
pursued the path among the graves a little way. Then striking off over
the grass, after a moment's consideration and looking about him, he
wound his course hither and thither among the turf mounds, and stopped
suddenly at a plain flat tombstone, raised horizontally above the earth
by a foot or so of brickwork. Bending down over it, he read the
characters engraven on the slab.
There were four inscriptions, all of the simplest and shortest kind,
comprising nothing but a record of the names, ages, and birth and death
dates of the dead who lay beneath.
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