chapel walls
too much for him, to be listening to something that appalled. And the
responses, low-muttered, in voices through which rose the same tone, the
same unseizable family ring, sounded weird, as though murmured in hurried
duplication by a single person.

The service in the chapel over, the mourners filed up again to guard the
body to the tomb. The vault stood open, and, round it, men in black were
waiting.

From that high and sacred field, where thousands of the upper middle
class lay in their last sleep, the eyes of the Forsytes travelled down
across the flocks of graves. There--spreading to the distance, lay
London, with no sun over it, mourning the loss of its daughter, mourning
with this family, so dear, the loss of her who was mother and guardian.
A hundred thousand spires and houses, blurred in the great grey web of
property, lay there like prostrate worshippers before the grave of this,
the oldest Forsyte of them all.

A few words, a sprinkle of earth, the thrusting of the coffin home, and
Aunt Ann had passed to her last rest.

Round the vault, trustees of that passing, the five brothers stood, with
white heads bowed; they would see that Ann was comfortable where she was
going. Her little property must stay behind, but otherwise, all that
could be should be done....

Then severally, each stood aside, and putting on his hat, turned back to
inspect the new inscription on the marble of the family vault:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ANN FORSYTE, THE DAUGHTER OF THE ABOVE JOLYON AND
ANN FORSYTE, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE THE 27TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER, 1886, AGED
EIGHTY-SEVEN YEARS AND FOUR DAYS

Soon perhaps, someone else would be wanting an inscription. It was
strange and intolerable, for they had not thought somehow, that Forsytes
could die. And one and all they had a longing to get away from this
painfulness, this ceremony which had reminded them of things they could
not bear to think about--to get away quickly and go about their business
and forget.

It was cold, too; the wind, like some slow, disintegrating force, blowing
up the hill over the graves, struck them with its chilly breath; they
began to split into groups, and as quickly as possible to fill the
waiting carriages.

Swithin said he should go back to lunch at Timothy's, and he offered to
take anybody with him in his brougham. It was considered a doubtful
privilege to drive with Swithin in his brougham, which was not a large
one; nobody a