nto the dining-room.
Uncle William was reading the paper.

"Your train was late," he said, looking up.

Philip was prepared to give way to his emotion, but the matter-of-fact
reception startled him. His uncle, subdued but calm, handed him the paper.

"There's a very nice little paragraph about her in The Blackstable
Times," he said.

Philip read it mechanically.

"Would you like to come up and see her?"

Philip nodded and together they walked upstairs. Aunt Louisa was lying in
the middle of the large bed, with flowers all round her.

"Would you like to say a short prayer?" said the Vicar.

He sank on his knees, and because it was expected of him Philip followed
his example. He looked at the little shrivelled face. He was only
conscious of one emotion: what a wasted life! In a minute Mr. Carey gave
a cough, and stood up. He pointed to a wreath at the foot of the bed.

"That's from the Squire," he said. He spoke in a low voice as though he
were in church, but one felt that, as a clergyman, he found himself quite
at home. "I expect tea is ready."

They went down again to the dining-room. The drawn blinds gave a
lugubrious aspect. The Vicar sat at the end of the table at which his wife
had always sat and poured out the tea with ceremony. Philip could not help
feeling that neither of them should have been able to eat anything, but
when he saw that his uncle's appetite was unimpaired he fell to with his
usual heartiness. They did not speak for a while. Philip set himself to
eat an excellent cake with the air of grief which he felt was decent.

"Things have changed a great deal since I was a curate," said the Vicar
presently. "In my young days the mourners used always to be given a pair
of black gloves and a piece of black silk for their hats. Poor Louisa used
to make the silk into dresses. She always said that twelve funerals gave
her a new dress."

Then he told Philip who had sent wreaths; there were twenty-four of them
already; when Mrs. Rawlingson, wife of the Vicar at Ferne, had died she
had had thirty-two; but probably a good many more would come the next day;
the funeral would start at eleven o'clock from the vicarage, and they
should beat Mrs. Rawlingson easily. Louisa never liked Mrs. Rawlingson.

"I shall take the funeral myself. I promised Louisa I would never let
anyone else bury her."

Philip looked at his uncle with disapproval when he took a second piece of
cake. Under the circumstances he could