in doing this she was repressed by no
feeling of false shame. She never hesitated in her demands through
bashfulness. She called aloud for such comfort and grandeur as
Yarmouth could afford her, and was well pleased that all around
should hear her calling. Joined to all this was her uncontrolled
grief for her husband's death.

"Dear Greenow! sweet lamb! Oh, Kate, if you'd only known that man!"
When she said this she was sitting in the best of Mrs Jones's
sitting-rooms, waiting to have dinner announced. She had taken a
drawing-room and dining-room, "because," as she had said, "she didn't
see why people should be stuffy when they went to the seaside;--not
if they had means to make themselves comfortable."

"Oh, Kate, I do wish you'd known him!"

"I wish I had," said Kate,--very untruly. "I was unfortunately away
when he went to Vavasor Hall."

"Ah, yes; but it was at home, in the domestic circle, that Greenow
should have been seen to be appreciated. I was a happy woman,
Kate, while that lasted." And Kate was surprised to see that real
tears--one or two on each side--were making their way down her
aunt's cheeks. But they were soon checked with a handkerchief of the
broadest hem and of the finest cambric.

"Dinner, ma'am," said Jeannette, opening the door.

"Jeannette, I told you always to say that dinner was served."

"Dinner's served then," said Jeannette in a tone of anger.

"Come, Kate," said her aunt. "I've but little appetite myself, but
there's no reason you shouldn't eat your dinner. I specially wrote to
Mrs Jones to have some sweetbread. I do hope she's got a decent cook.
It's very little I eat myself, but I do like to see things nice."

The next day was Sunday; and it was beautiful to see how Mrs Greenow
went to church in all the glory of widowhood. There had been a great
unpacking after that banquet on the sweetbread, and all her funereal
millinery had been displayed before Kate's wondering eyes. The charm
of the woman was in this,--that she was not in the least ashamed of
anything that she did. She turned over all her wardrobe of mourning,
showing the richness of each article, the stiffness of the crape,
the fineness of the cambric, the breadth of the frills,--telling the
price of each to a shilling, while she explained how the whole had
been amassed without any consideration of expense. This she did with
all the pride of a young bride when she shows the glories of her
trousseau to the friend of her