ot well send her packing while the old
man lay above ground, and to begin quarrelling, with his corpse in the
house, would be indecent. Go the woman should, but during her three days'
grace stepson and stepmother had best keep up appearances.

He did not demur, when descending to supper, he found his father's chair
removed from its place at the head of the table and his own set at the
side on the widow's right. She met him with a smile, too, of which he had
to approve; it seemed to say, "I do not forget that we are, and must be,
antagonists; but in trifles, and for the short while permitted to us, let
us do each other justice." She discussed, in low tones but frankly, the
old man's illness--told him what there was to tell, pausing now and then
with a silent invitation to question her were he minded, and apologised
very prettily for her shortcomings as a hostess.

"But you will, of course, order just what you want. Luckily the servants
know you and your ways, and you will forgive anything I have overlooked.
In the circumstances--"

She broke off, and Roger found himself grunting that "she wasn't to
trouble about that: he'd do well enough." He did not actually thank her
for her preparations to make him comfortable, but discovered with a kind
of indignant surprise that he had come very near to it. Somehow this
woman, whom he had expected to find an ignorant fisher-wench, hoity-toity
and brazen or tearful and sullen, was making him painfully conscious of
his own boorishness. Out she must go, of course, after the funeral;
but he wished he had seen a little more of good company in the past,
and he kept up his temper by reminding himself that he had been ill-used
and denied a college education.

The meal ended, she rose and swept him a curtsey, neither over-friendly
nor standoffish. "Peggy will bring you the brandy and water," she said,
"or, if you prefer it, there is rum in the house. I thought, maybe, the
weather was warm for a fire; but, as you see, it is laid, and only needs a
light if you feel chilly. Your father liked to sit by a fire even on
summer evenings." She did not add that he had invariably come drunk to
bed. "But there," she ended with a faint smile, "we have the old
servants, and they are not likely to neglect you."

A second curtsey, and she was gone. Roger sat down by the cold hearth
and stroked his chin. By-and-by he looked at his fingers, as if
(absurdly enough) to make sure he had not s