cular modesty of the
chamber, Meshach received them one by one with calmness, with
detachment, with the air of the curator of the museum. 'Here she is,'
his mien indicated. 'That is to say, what's left. Gaze your fill.'
Beyond a monotonous 'Thank ye, thank ye,' in response to expressions of
sympathy for him, and of appreciation of Hannah's manifold excellences,
he made no remarks to any one except Leonora and Arthur Twemlow.

'Has that ginger wine come?' he asked Leonora anxiously. The feast after
the sepulture was as important, and as strictly controlled by etiquette,
as the lying-in-state. Leonora, who had charge of the meal, was able to
give him an affirmative.

'I'm glad as you've come,' he said to Twemlow. 'I had a fancy for you to
see her again as soon as they told me you was back. Her makes a good
corpse, eh?'

Twemlow agreed. 'To die suddenly, that's the best,' he murmured
awkwardly; he did not know what to say.

'Her was a good sister, a good sister!' Meshach pronounced with an
emotion which was doubtless genuine and profound, but which
superficially resembled that of an examiner awarding pass-marks to a
pupil. 'By the way, Twemlow,' he added as Arthur was leaving the room,
'didst ever thrash that business out wi' our John? I've been thinking
over a lot of things while I was fast abed up yon'.'

Arthur stared at him.

'Thou knowst what I mean?' continued Meshach, putting his thin tremulous
hand on the edge of the coffin in order to rise from the chair.

'Yes,' Arthur replied, 'I know. I haven't settled it yet, I haven't had
time.'

'I should ha' thought thou'dst had time enough, lad,' said Meshach.

Then the undertaker's men adjusted the lid of the coffin, hiding Aunt
Hannah's face, and screwed in the eight brass screws, and clumped down
the dark stairs with their burden, and so across the pavement between
two rows of sluttish sightseers, to the hearse. Uncle Meshach, with the
aid only of his stick, entered the first coach; John Stanway and Fred
Ryley--the rules of precedence were thus inflexible!--occupied the
second; and Arthur Twemlow, with the family lawyer and the family
doctor, took the third. Leonora remained in the house with the servant
to spread the feast.

The church was barely four hundred yards away, and in less than half an
hour they were all in the house again; all save Aunt Hannah, who had
already, in the vault of the Myatts, passed the first five minutes of
the tedium of waiting fo