tree, her reputation grew, year by year, as girth is added to a tree. Those who had come to pay respect to her remains felt that they were taking part in a momentous and climacteric occasion.
To stout Hodge, who had driven her phaeton for the past thirty years, her death had been a tragedy. The meaning of his life was gone. No longer would he groom the bays—each nearing thirty—to satin sleekness, on a Sunday morning, polishing their jangling harness to a bright finish. No longer wash down the creaking wheels of the phaeton or put on his tight coachman's coat with the velvet collar. His dignity was gone. He was nothing but an ageing stableman.
He had come to Nicholas with tears on his cheeks, and said: "I suppose, sir, I'll never need to bring out the old phaeton again. . . . It does seem hard."
And Nicholas had growled: "My brother and I will use the phaeton for a long time yet, I hope." Nicholas would have preferred to go to church in a motor-car, now that the widow's veil of his mother would no longer dominate the phaeton, but one could not hurt Hodge. He was the one old servant left. The others came and went, and had no old-fashioned pride in their work.
Renny, in the car with his brothers, was thinking of the phaeton. He was remembering how his grandmother delighted in having her horses possess the middle of the road, thereby preventing him or any other motorist from passing. But him in particular. Yes, she had liked to get the best of him. God, but she was game!
He wished she might have seen the number who had turned out to do her honour. It seemed too bad that she could never know. And the flowers! A car filled with them. He liked that wreath of roses and carnations from the Hunt Club. . . . He looked his brothers over. It was good to see Eden fit again. A summer at Jalna was bound to do it. Good, too, to see him and Piers riding in the same car. It had taken some will-power to bring that about. He wondered if it were possible to bridge that chasm. He was afraid not. Wives brought into the family had a way of messing things up. A
