130 ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS.

The coldness of the clergyman was forgot.
ten in the bitterness of self-reproach. ‘I was
a fool,’ she thought, as she turned away, “ to
fancy that my native air could be untainted by
the destiny which has mocked me from my
cradle.”

_ “Ah! lady dear?’ exclaimed a crone, rising

from a grave where she had been sitting, ‘* don’t
you remember old Betty? They all said in the
village you'd be too proud to look on your
grandmother’s grave; but you’re not, I see.
Well, that’s good—that’s good. We had a fu-
neral last week, and the vault of the old earl
was broken in. The stupid sexton stuck his
pick in amongst the old bricks, and so the great
man’s skull came tumbling out, and rolled be-
side the skull of Job Martin, the old cobbler ;
and the sexton laid them both on the edge of
the grave, the earl’s skull and the cobbler’s
skull, until he should fetch a mason to mend the
vault, and—what do you think !—when the ma-
son came, the sexton could not tell which was the
earl's skull and which was the cobbler’s! La-
dy, you must understand how this is—it’s all
the same in a hundred years, according to the
saying; and so it is. None of them could tell
which was the earl’s, and which the cobbler’s.
My skull may lie next a lady’s yet, and no one
tell the difference.”

The lady and child hastened from the church-
yard, and the old woman muttered, “ To see