e change ought to be made, but
he had gone on in this unsatisfactory manner, trusting that at Mrs.
Nesbit's death all would be straight. Her West Indian estates and
accumulation of wealth must be bequeathed either to his wife or among
his children; and in either case he would be set at ease--either
relieved from supporting Arthur, or enabled to do so without difficulty.

The funeral took place in full grandeur. Lady Martindale had made it a
special request that every one would mourn as if for her mother, and it
was just one of the occasions when pomp was needed to supply the place
of grief.

The only real mourner shut herself up in her own room, whither Theodora
begged Violet to follow her. She found her stretched on her bed,
abandoned to grief. It was the sense of orphanhood; the first time
she had come so close to death and its circumstances, and it was
overpowering sorrow; but Violet had better learnt how to deal with her,
and could venture to caress and soothe--entreat her to remember how much
was left to love her--and then listen to what Lady Martindale began as
the rehearsal of her aunt's care to shield her from sorrow; but Violet
soon saw it was the outpouring of a pent-up grief, that had never dared
to come forth. The last time the vault had been opened it had been for
the infant she had lost, and just before for the little girls, who had
died in her absence. 'My dear,' she said, 'you do not know how it is all
brought back to me. It is as if your three darlings were the same I left
when we went abroad. Your sweet Helen is exactly like my precious little
Anna, whom I little thought I was never to see again! Oh, my babies!'

Violet was quite relieved to find this excessive grief was not spent on
her aunt, but that it was the long-restrained sorrow for an affliction
in which she could so much better sympathize. It had been of no avail
for Mrs. Nesbit, in mistaken kindness, and ignorance of a mother's
heart, to prevent her from ever adverting to her darlings; it had only
debarred her from the true source of comfort, and left the wound to ache
unhealed, while her docile outward placidity was deemed oblivion. The
fear of such sorrow had often been near Violet, and she was never able
to forget on how frail a tenure she held her firstborn; and from the
bottom of her heart came her soothing sympathy, as she led her on to
dwell on the thought of those innocents, in their rest and safety. Lady
Martindale listened as if i