ABSTRACT
In another week he also was carried out under the big yews and the Chantrey and Roubiliac 402 statues, and laid beside the remains of his father and forefathers in a black-velvet covered coffin with silver handles and his ducal coronet upon it. But he had no sincere mourners, not one, although in the usual sickly tawdry habit of the time heaps of wreaths and garlands were piled up to his detested memory. His wife was again present, enveloped in the long crape veil of usage, with her two little sons beside her – a most touching and lovely figure. During the ceremony it would have been impossible for any observer to say whether she were profoundly touched or merely apathetic; but at one point in the service, when the village choir were singing a Mendelssohn hymn, her head drooped lower and lower, and her veiled figure moved with what resembled a convulsive sob: a correspondent of a daily paper, indeed, scribbled in shorthand that only for one instant did her admirable fortitude give way to an irrepressible burst of 181natural anguish. Jack knew better: he nudged Gerry and whispered very low: ‘Mammy’s laughin’. We mustn’t.’
