CHAPTER LIII.
"A BIT O' GOOD BLACK."
Granny Dixon was interred with pomp and ceremony, or, at least, with what appeared pomp and ceremony in the eyes of the lower social stratum of Broxton.
Mrs. Briarley's idea concerning the legacy left her had been of the vaguest. Her revered relative had shrewdly kept the amount of her possessions strictly to herself, if indeed, she knew definitely what they were. She had spent but little, discreetly living upon the expectations of her kindred. She had never been known to give anybody anything, and had dealt out the money to be expended upon her own wants with a close hand. Consequently, the principal, which had been a mystery from the first, had accumulated in an agreeably steady manner.
Between her periodic fits of weeping in her character of sole legatee, Mrs. Briarley speculated with matronly prudence upon the possibility of the interest even amounting to "a matter o' ten or fifteen shillin' a week," and found the pangs of bereavement materially softened thereby. There was a great deal of consolation to be derived from "ten or fifteen shillin' a week."
"I'll ha' a bit o' good black," she said, "an' we'll gi' her a noice buryin'." Only a severe sense of duty to the deceased rescued her from tempering her mournfulness with an air of modest cheer.
