Early and Late Papers Author:William Makepeace Thackeray Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BLUEBEARD'S GHOST. OR some time after the fatal accident which deprived her of her husband, Mrs. Bluebeard was, as may be imagined, in a state of profoun... more »d grief. There was not a widow in all the country who went to such an expense for black bombazine. She had her beautiful hair confined in crimped caps, and her weepers came over her elbows. Of course she saw no company except her sister Anne (whose company was anything but pleasant to the widow) ; as for her brothers, their odious mess-table manners had always been disagreeable to her. What did she care for jokes about the major, or scandal concerning the Scotch surgeon of the regiment ? If they drank their wine out of black bottles or crystal, what did it matter to her ? Their stories of the stable, the parade, and the last run with the hounds, were perfectly odious to her; besides she could not bear their impertinent mustachios, and filthy habit of smoking cigars. They were always wild, vulgar young men, at the best; but now — now, oh! their presence to her delicate soul was horror! How could she bear to look on them after what had occurred? She thought of the best of husbands ruthlessly cut down by their cruel, heavy, cavalry sabres; the kind friend, the generous landlord, the spotless justice of peace, in whose family differences these rude cornets of dragoons had dared to interfere, whose venerable blue hairs they had dragged down with sorrow to the grave! She put up a most splendid monument to her departed lord over the family vault of the Bluebeards. The rector, Dr. Sly, who had been Mr. Bluebeard's tutor at college, wrote an epitaph in the most pompous yet pathetic Latin : " Siste, viator! moorens conjux, heu ! quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse"; in a word, everything that is usually...« less