[CHAPTER X.]
THE AFTER SMART.
"How doth Death speak of our beloved,
When it hath laid them low?
• • • • •
"It sweeps their faults with heavy hand,
As sweeps the sea the trampled sand,
Till scarce the faintest print is scanned.
• • • • •
"It takes each failing on our part,
And brands it in upon the heart,
With caustic power and cruel art."
Author of "The Schönberg-Cotta Family."
"IT's a scrumptious cake—very!" said Mrs. Kennedy, putting a piece into her own mouth.
She was in ante-lunch déshabillé, and looked, to say the least, not tidy. The inevitable end of loose hair obtruded itself from under a cap which had long passed its prime; and she only escaped having an unpinned collar by the simple process of wearing no collar at all.
Conflicting emotions showed themselves in her kind and genial face, for this was the day after General Villiers' funeral; and people have a natural feeling at such a time that the world ought not to run its usual course too blithely, that sunshine ought not to be too radiant, that cake ought not to taste too nice. Still, Mrs. Kennedy was not constitutionally given to depression, being a born optimist; a happy circumstance for one whose husband was a born pessimist, always disposed to hug his miseries, even when he had none.
Moreover the General and his wife had been her friends rather by circumstance than by choice; and Dicky, her spoilt youngest—not spoilt, of course, in maternal eyes—was irresistible.
"If father was to see you now! O Dicky, Dicky, Dicky! I'm sure the very next thing he'll have to do, will be to preach a sermon on greediness, all for yourself. Greediness!" repeated Mrs. Kennedy, with emphasis, counting herself a judicially severe mother.
It was to be feared that the said sermon would float as an outside fog over Dicky's brain, since Mr. Kennedy had not the art of reaching a child's mind. The road thereto is very straight, and Mr. Kennedy was wont to preach and expound in circles.
"Now you've had quite enough, Dicky—quite enough, and too much for any respectable little boy. No, not one single crumb more. I couldn't possibly, you know."