hs.
Yours was beautiful. Philip and I admired it very much."

"Don't mention it," said the banker.

He had noticed with satisfaction that it was larger than anyone's else. It
had looked very well. They began to discuss the people who attended the
funeral. Shops had been closed for it, and the churchwarden took out of
his pocket the notice which had been printed: "Owing to the funeral of
Mrs. Carey this establishment will not be opened till one o'clock."

"It was my idea," he said.

"I think it was very nice of them to close," said the Vicar. "Poor Louisa
would have appreciated that."

Philip ate his dinner. Mary Ann had treated the day as Sunday, and they
had roast chicken and a gooseberry tart.

"I suppose you haven't thought about a tombstone yet?" said the
churchwarden.

"Yes, I have. I thought of a plain stone cross. Louisa was always against
ostentation."

"I don't think one can do much better than a cross. If you're thinking of
a text, what do you say to: With Christ, which is far better?"

The Vicar pursed his lips. It was just like Bismarck to try and settle
everything himself. He did not like that text; it seemed to cast an
aspersion on himself.

"I don't think I should put that. I much prefer: The Lord has given and
the Lord has taken away."

"Oh, do you? That always seems to me a little indifferent."

The Vicar answered with some acidity, and Mr. Graves replied in a tone
which the widower thought too authoritative for the occasion. Things were
going rather far if he could not choose his own text for his own wife's
tombstone. There was a pause, and then the conversation drifted to parish
matters. Philip went into the garden to smoke his pipe. He sat on a bench,
and suddenly began to laugh hysterically.

A few days later his uncle expressed the hope that he would spend the next
few weeks at Blackstable.

"Yes, that will suit me very well," said Philip.

"I suppose it'll do if you go back to Paris in September."

Philip did not reply. He had thought much of what Foinet said to him, but
he was still so undecided that he did not wish to speak of the future.
There would be something fine in giving up art because he was convinced
that he could not excel; but unfortunately it would seem so only to
himself: to others it would be an admission of defeat, and he did not want
to confess that he was beaten. He was an obstinate fellow, and the
suspicion that his talent did not lie in one direction made h