l we be able to go out on Friday, Minnie?" Friday was the funeral
day.

"It would be very bad taste, I think. Of course, if it does not prove
too much for us, we ought to go to church to meet the procession. Often
it is thought to be too much for the ladies of a family."

"I am sure it would not be too much for me. Oh, I shall go as far as we
can go with him--to the grave, Minnie."

"You had better wait till you see whether it will not be too much for
you," said the elder sister, while Chatty dried her eyes. Minnie's eyes
had no need of drying. She had cried at the right time, but it was
little more than levity to be always crying. It was nearly as bad as
enjoying anything. She did not like extravagance of any kind.

And then they turned to their reading again, and felt that, whatever
mamma might think herself at liberty to do, they, at least, were
paying that respect to their father's memory which young women in a
well-regulated household should always be the first to pay.

CHAPTER III.

Meanwhile the mother and son took their walk. It was a very silent walk,
without much outward trace of that enjoyment which Minnie had felt so
cruelly out of place: but no doubt to both there was a certain pleasure
in it. Mr. Warrender had now been lying in that silent state which the
most insignificant person holds immediately after death, for three days,
and there was still another to come before he could be laid away in the
dark and noisome bed in the family vault, where all the Warrenders made
their last assertion of superiority to common clay. This long and awful
pause in the affairs of life was intolerable to the two people now
walking softly through the paths of the little wood, where the moonbeams
shone through the trees; to the son, because he was of an impatient
nature, and could not endure the artificial gloom which was thus forced
upon him. He had felt keenly all those natural sensations which the
loss of a father calls forth: the breaking of an old tie, the oldest
in the world; the breach of all the habits of his life; the absence
of the familiar greeting, which had always been kind enough, if never
enthusiastic; the general overturn and loss of the usual equilibrium in
his little world. It was no blame to Theo if his feelings went little
further than this. His father had been no active influence in his life.
His love had been passive, expressing itself in few words, without
sympathy in any of the young man's