stayed in her room, and George did not
see her until the next day, a few minutes before the funeral, when her
haggard face appalled him. But by this time he was quite himself again,
and during the short service in the cemetery his thoughts even wandered
so far as to permit him a feeling of regret not directly connected with
his father. Beyond the open flower-walled grave was a mound where new
grass grew; and here lay his great-uncle, old John Minafer, who had
died the previous autumn; and beyond this were the graves of George's
grandfather and grandmother Minafer, and of his grandfather Minafer's
second wife, and her three sons, George's half-uncles, who had been
drowned together in a canoe accident when George was a child--Fanny was
the last of the family. Next beyond was the Amberson family lot, where
lay the Major's wife and their sons Henry and Milton, uncles whom George
dimly remembered; and beside them lay Isabel's older sister, his Aunt
Estelle, who had died, in her girlhood, long before George was born. The
Minafer monument was a granite block, with the name chiseled upon its
one polished side, and the Amberson monument was a white marble shaft
taller than any other in that neighbourhood. But farther on there was a
newer section of the cemetery, an addition which had been thrown open to
occupancy only a few years before, after dexterous modern treatment by
a landscape specialist. There were some large new mausoleums here, and
shafts taller than the Ambersons', as well as a number of monuments of
some sculptural pretentiousness; and altogether the new section appeared
to be a more fashionable and important quarter than that older one which
contained the Amberson and Minafer lots. This was what caused George's
regret, during the moment or two when his mind strayed from his father
and the reading of the service.

On the train, going back to college, ten days later, this regret (though
it was as much an annoyance as a regret) recurred to his mind, and a
feeling developed within him that the new quarter of the cemetery was
in bad taste--not architecturally or sculpturally perhaps, but in
presumption: it seemed to flaunt a kind of parvenu ignorance, as if it
were actually pleased to be unaware that all the aristocratic and really
important families were buried in the old section.

The annoyance gave way before a recollection of the sweet mournfulness
of his mother's face, as she had said good-bye to him at the statio