The preacher reddened and coughed uneasily:
"No—no—my dear—nothing of the kind. You misunderstood me——"
"I heard you, Dad," piped the falsetto voice of his daughter, a gawky girl of eighteen.
The situation was rapidly becoming strained, and it was a relief to Jimmy when his wife came to the rescue by offering the visitors some liquid refreshment. Mrs. Thomas Marsh, wife of the Newark haberdasher, a tall, angular woman with a shrill, masculine voice, accepted with alacrity:
"Thank m'm, I don't care if I does. You know I hate funerals, I'm that spooky. They allus gives me the creeps. Not that I ever seed nothin', but I'm just afeerd. Glass of brandy? Yes—thank you, m'm. I wouldn't have come to-day, but for Tom's coaxing. He worried and worried——"
"But my dear madam," interposed Mr. James Marsh, somewhat scandalized. "This is not a funeral. We've met here merely to listen to the reading of my lamented brother's will."
Mrs. Thomas chuckled, paying no attention to her husband, who kept nudging her to be quiet.
"Uncle John's will! Well—don't wills and death go together? There's no will readin' without a death, is there? That's why these meetings are spooky." Flopping down on one of the chairs, she demanded: "How long will we have to wait?"
"Directly my lawyer arrives," he replied, trying to control his temper. "He won't be long now."
An awkward silence followed. Each looked at the other while Jimmy, who was growing more and more nervous, paced restlessly from table to window. Mrs. Marsh, overheated from excitement, was busy giving final instructions to the servants to leave them undisturbed once the reading had begun. The country cousins and their offspring took advantage of the preoccupation of their hosts to glance furtively round the room, making muffled exclamations as they attracted each other's attention to the richness of the furnishings, watching open-mouthed the going and coming of the solemn-faced butler, who, together with his master, was on the alert for the arrival of the much-desired Mr. Cooley.