it's
been to God above; though where there's one brother a bachelor and the
other childless after twice marrying--anybody might think!"

Meanwhile, Mr. Vincy had glanced at the passive face of Mr. Rigg, and
had taken out his snuff-box and tapped it, but had put it again
unopened as an indulgence which, however clarifying to the judgment,
was unsuited to the occasion. "I shouldn't wonder if Featherstone had
better feelings than any of us gave him credit for," he observed, in
the ear of his wife. "This funeral shows a thought about everybody: it
looks well when a man wants to be followed by his friends, and if they
are humble, not to be ashamed of them. I should be all the better
pleased if he'd left lots of small legacies. They may be uncommonly
useful to fellows in a small way."

"Everything is as handsome as could be, crape and silk and everything,"
said Mrs. Vincy, contentedly.

But I am sorry to say that Fred was under some difficulty in repressing
a laugh, which would have been more unsuitable than his father's
snuff-box. Fred had overheard Mr. Jonah suggesting something about a
"love-child," and with this thought in his mind, the stranger's face,
which happened to be opposite him, affected him too ludicrously. Mary
Garth, discerning his distress in the twitchings of his mouth, and his
recourse to a cough, came cleverly to his rescue by asking him to
change seats with her, so that he got into a shadowy corner. Fred was
feeling as good-naturedly as possible towards everybody, including
Rigg; and having some relenting towards all these people who were less
lucky than he was aware of being himself, he would not for the world
have behaved amiss; still, it was particularly easy to laugh.

But the entrance of the lawyer and the two brothers drew every one's
attention. The lawyer was Mr. Standish, and he had come to Stone Court
this morning believing that he knew thoroughly well who would be
pleased and who disappointed before the day was over. The will he
expected to read was the last of three which he had drawn up for Mr.
Featherstone. Mr. Standish was not a man who varied his manners: he
behaved with the same deep-voiced, off-hand civility to everybody, as
if he saw no difference in them, and talked chiefly of the hay-crop,
which would be "very fine, by God!" of the last bulletins concerning
the King, and of the Duke of Clarence, who was a sailor every inch of
him, and just the man to rule over an island l