m to move on."
Often they had been obliged to add threepence of their own before the
man would go--Timothy had ever underrated the value of emotion. Luckily
he had taken the organs for blue-bottles in his last years, which had
been a comfort, and they had been able to enjoy the tunes. But a harp!
Cook wondered. It WAS a change! And Mr. Timothy had never liked change.
But she did not speak of this to Smither, who did so take a line of her
own in regard to heaven that it quite put one about sometimes.

She cried while Timothy was being prepared, and they all had sherry
afterwards out of the yearly Christmas bottle, which would not be
needed now. Ah! dear! She had been there five-and-forty years and
Smither nine-and-thirty! And now they would be going to a tiny house in
Tooting, to live on their savings and what Miss Hester had so kindly
left them--for to take fresh service after the glorious past--No! But
they WOULD like just to see Mr. Soames again, and Mrs. Dartie, and Miss
Francie, and Miss Euphemia. And even if they had to take their own cab,
they felt they must go to the funeral. For six years Mr. Timothy had
been their baby, getting younger and younger every day, till at last he
had been too young to live.

They spent the regulation hours of waiting in polishing and dusting, in
catching the one mouse left, and asphyxiating the last beetle, so as to
leave it nice, discussing with each other what they would buy at the
sale. Miss Ann's work-box; Miss Juley's (that is Mrs. Julia's) seaweed
album; the fire-screen Miss Hester had crewelled; and Mr. Timothy's
hair--little golden curls, glued into a black frame. Oh! they must have
those--only the price of things had gone up so!

It fell to Soames to issue invitations for the funeral. He had them
drawn up by Gradman in his office--only blood relations, and no
flowers. Six carriages were ordered. The Will would be read afterwards
at the house.

He arrived at eleven o'clock to see that all was ready. At a quarter
past old Gradman came in black gloves and crape on his hat. He and
Soames stood in the drawing-room waiting. At half-past eleven the
carriages drew up in a long row. But no one else appeared. Gradman said:

"It surprises me, Mr. Soames. I posted them myself."

"I don't know," said Soames; "he'd lost touch with the family."

Soames had often noticed in old days how much more neighbourly his
family were to the dead than to the living. But, now, the way they had