LIFE OF LORD REDESDALE the collection, and the gentlemen—selected as a great honour—armed with offertory plates, who frantically tried to intercept their departure. Funerals were a great diversion. A corpse was followed to the grave by a motley crowd, many of whom had hardly claimed a bow- ing acquaintance with the deceased during life, seated in dilapidated conveyances. Mourners, horses and carriages were lavishly adorned with all the panoply of woe. Lord Redesdale was anxious that his wife should acquit herself well in her new and strange surroundings, and two days after their return he wrote to Mr. Marsden: "Lady Redesdale and I will take a quiet dinner with you and Mrs. Marsden on Friday. By quiet, I mean a dinner with- out form or bustle. ... I wish her to see some of the natives before she is involved in the^rart bustle/' 94