The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 149: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

140 THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. loved embalmed his memory in that rich temple where feeling treasures up its griefs and joys. Their unfeigned sorrow was a better epitaph than any graved upon the lying marble—a nobler blazon on his turf-bound grave than herald’s pen could have inscribed. In those fitful fancies which precede dissolution he had often said— ** Don’t bury me in Manchester, dear mother—I have had enough of streets and close-pent lanes ; bury me in the country, amongst leaves and flowers. I have seen so little of them in life that I should like to repose amongst them after death; it would charm me to know that the thrush and merry linnet would warble their songs over my grave; and you and Amy, when you come to visit, might pluck a wild flower from the turf that covered it, and bear it in sad remembrance with you.” At such times his mother and sister would gently chide him for such dull thoughts, and speak of hopes which they were far from feeling—of a future, bright as his boyish imagination had once painted. Although his request was treated with affectionate reproof at the time, it was sacredly remembered ; and it was decided that the remains of the poor youth should be laid in the secluded, quiet churchyard o , one of those rustic spots which solitude and sanctity alike seem to have marked out from the world. Not only Henry Beacham, but the master, and most of the brothers of his lodge, attended Richard Lawrence to ecomnuicloooks (SO