p with
the remains just himself and Hawkins. Even this seemed a doubtful
attention, to his wife, but she offered no objection, for it was plain
that he had a quite honest and simple-hearted desire to do the friendly
and honourable thing by these forlorn poor relics which could command no
hospitality in this far off land of strangers but his. He draped the
flag about the baskets, put some crape on the door-knob, and said with
satisfaction:

"There--he is as comfortable, now, as we can make him in the
circumstances. Except--yes, we must strain a point there--one must do as
one would wish to be done by--he must have it."

"Have what, dear?"

"Hatchment."

The wife felt that the house-front was standing about all it could well
stand, in that way; the prospect of another stunning decoration of that
nature distressed her, and she wished the thing had not occurred to him.
She said, hesitatingly:

"But I thought such an honour as that wasn't allowed to any but very very
near relations, who--"

"Right, you are quite right, my lady, perfectly right; but there aren't
any nearer relatives than relatives by usurpation. We cannot avoid it;
we are slaves of aristocratic custom and must submit."

The hatchments were unnecessarily generous, each being as large as a
blanket, and they were unnecessarily volcanic, too, as to variety and
violence of color, but they pleased the earl's barbaric eye, and they
satisfied his taste for symmetry and completeness, too, for they left no
waste room to speak of on the house-front.

Lady Rossmore and her daughter assisted at the sitting-up till near
midnight, and helped the gentlemen to consider what ought to be done next
with the remains. Rossmore thought they ought to be sent home with a
committee and resolutions,--at once. But the wife was doubtful. She
said:

"Would you send all of the baskets?"

"Oh, yes, all."

"All at once?"

"To his father? Oh, no--by no means. Think of the shock. No--one at a
time; break it to him by degrees."

"Would that have that effect, father?"

"Yes, my daughter. Remember, you are young and elastic, but he is old.
To send him the whole at once might well be more than he could bear.
But mitigated--one basket at a time, with restful intervals between,
he would be used to it by the time he got all of him. And sending him
in three ships is safer anyway. On account of wrecks and storms."

"I don't like the idea, father. If I were his father