heavy scent of flowers. He gazed long at the calm face, at the shapely old hands folded in resignation.
"But, Aunt," he exclaimed, his clear treble sounding incongruous in that room, "she looks so nice! Isn't it a pity to bury her?"
Her old friends—there were not many left—agreed that they had never seen a corpse look so natural. Down in the basement Rags declared to his wife and the kitchenmaid, and a little gathering of workers from the stables, the farm, and Vaughanlands: "Bless me, if the old lady don't look more natural than 'erself!"
What of Renny? Like one of the horses among which he spent so much of his time, his feeling toward death was one of almost animal alarm. He drew away, shivering, from the sinister presence that shadowed the house.
After one look at the face of the dead woman, he left the room and did not return to it until the hour of the funeral. Death, as he had seen it during the War, had not affected him greatly. He had been overseas when his father and his stepmother had died. This experience was to him terrifying. He left the arrangements for the funeral to Augusta, Ernest, and Piers. In one matter only he took an interest, the choosing of the pallbearers. These, he decided, must be the four eldest grandsons. Eden expostulated, he was not strong enough yet to undertake such a thing. Alayne thought, and said with some vehemence, that it would be wrong, impossible for him to tax his strength so. But Renny was adamant. Eden looked to him almost as well as ever; he should and must take his place among his brothers to bear the body of their grandmother to her grave. He went to Fiddler's Hut, and the three sat about the table talking excitedly, his red hair in an unkempt crest, his lean narrow face flushed, the sharp lines of his face set against opposition. Eden gave in.
The day of the funeral broke infinitely lovely. There had been a heavy dew, which lay like a sparkling veil across the lawn. It was a still day, except for the chatter of small birds in the evergreens along the drive. There
