Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/46

Rh mark. If any private revelations were made to him, he has never divulged them, and I know he never will. When I saw him in Copenhagen, in the summer of 1826, I did not think he looked like a man who was to stay much longer in this world of care. He had not anything to trouble him particularly, that I know of; except that he had nobody to inherit his property, and that was not much.

There was another strange circumstance, which I must not pass over. A few weeks after Mr. Tompkins was buried, a plain tombstone, shaped exactly like that which had been erected by his order over his wife, appeared at the head of his grave; and on it was inscribed, "Hugh Tompkins: Died in the 58th year of his age." Who put it up no one could tell, nor is it known to this day.

The burying ground is as forlorn a place as can well be imagined. There is only a ragged fence around it, and nothing but rank common grass, dandelions, and white-weed grow in it. There is nothing picturesque in or about it ; and a Paris belle would rather never die at all, than be stowed into such vile sepulchral accommodations.

These are all the facts in my knowledge relating to the hero and heroine, as to whom and whose resources curiosity is yet so lively in the village which I have referred to, but not named, in order to avoid scandal. "The annals of the human race, Its records since the world began, Of them afford no other trace Than this-there lived a man, and his wife, whose name was Tompkins. I superscribe my story "A Simple Tale," and "simply," as Sir Andrew Aguecheek has it, I believe it is such. It can possess no interest save from the mystery which hangs over its subjects; no pathos, except from their loneliness on the earth, into whose common bosom they have been consigned, leaving only such frail memorials behind them as their laconic epitaphs and this evanescent legend.