The widower had just taken his fourth wife and was showing her around the village. Among the places visited was the churchyard, and the bride paused before a very elaborate tombstone that had been erected by the bridegroom. Being a little nearsighted she asked him to read the inscription, and in reverent tones he read:
"Here lies Susan, beloved wife of John Smith; also Jane, beloved wife of John Smith; also Mary, beloved wife of John Smith—"
He paused abruptly, and the bride, leaning forward to see the bottom line, read, to her horror:
"Be Ye Also Ready."
A man wished to have something original on his wife's headstone and hit upon, "Lord, she was Thine." He had his own ideas of the size of the letters and the space between words, and gave instructions to the stonemason. The latter carried them out all right, except that he could not get in the "E" in Thine.
In a cemetery at Middlebury, Vt., is a stone, erected by a widow to her loving husband, bearing this inscription: "Rest in peace—until we meet again."