ers finished their work and
piled up the wreaths and crosses above it. The sun set over Hilton;
the grey brows of the evening flushed a little, and were cleft with
one scarlet frown. Chattering sadly to each other, the mourners passed
through the lych-gate and traversed the chestnut avenues that led down
to the village. The young wood-cutter stayed a little longer, poised
above the silence and swaying rhythmically. At last the bough fell
beneath his saw. With a grunt, he descended, his thoughts dwelling no
longer on death, but on love, for he was mating. He stopped as he passed
the new grave; a sheaf of tawny chrysanthemums had caught his eye.
"They didn't ought to have coloured flowers at buryings," he reflected.
Trudging on a few steps, he stopped again, looked furtively at the dusk,
turned back, wrenched a chrysanthemum from the sheaf, and hid it in his
pocket.

After him came silence absolute. The cottage that abutted on the
churchyard was empty, and no other house stood near. Hour after hour
the scene of the interment remained without an eye to witness it. Clouds
drifted over it from the west; or the church may have been a ship,
high-prowed, steering with all its company towards infinity. Towards
morning the air grew colder, the sky clearer, the surface of the earth
hard and sparkling above the prostrate dead. The wood-cutter, returning
after a night of joy, reflected: "They lilies, they chrysants; it's a
pity I didn't take them all."

Up at Howards End they were attempting breakfast. Charles and Evie sat
in the dining-room, with Mrs. Charles. Their father, who could not bear
to see a face, breakfasted upstairs. He suffered acutely. Pain came over
him in spasms, as if it was physical, and even while he was about to
eat, his eyes would fill with tears, and he would lay down the morsel
untasted.

He remembered his wife's even goodness during thirty years. Not anything
in detail--not courtship or early raptures--but just the unvarying
virtue, that seemed to him a woman's noblest quality. So many women are
capricious, breaking into odd flaws of passion or frivolity. Not so his
wife. Year after year, summer and winter, as bride and mother, she had
been the same, he had always trusted her. Her tenderness! Her innocence!
The wonderful innocence that was hers by the gift of God. Ruth knew
no more of worldly wickedness and wisdom than did the flowers in her
garden, or the grass in her field. Her idea of business--"Henry,