Sydney Calcott wrote to him in the name of various former scholars of Mrs. Frost, anxious to do her the last honours by attending the funeral. Homage to her days of gallant exertion in poverty was most welcome and touching to the young people; but their uncle, without taste to understand it, wishing to forget her labours, and fancying them discreditable to a daughter of the Dynevors, received the proposal like an indignity; and but for Fitzjocelyn's mediation and expostulations, it would have been most unsuitably rejected. He was obliged to take the answer into his own hands, since Oliver insisted that his mother was to be regarded in no light save that of Mrs. Dynevor, of Cheveleigh; and James was equally resolved that she should be only Mrs. Frost, of Dynevor Terrace.
It was heart-sickening to see these bickerings over the grave of one so loving and so beloved; and very trying to be always on the alert to obviate the snappings that might at any time become a sharp dissension; but nothing very distressing actually arose until the last day before the funeral, when the three cousins were sitting together in the morning-room; James writing letters.
'I am asking Lady Conway to give you a bed to-morrow night, Clara,' he said. 'We shall be at home by three o'clock.'
'Oh, Jem!' said Clara, clasping her hands to keep them from trembling; 'I never thought of that.'
'You are not ready! That is unlucky, for I cannot come to fetch you; but I suppose you can travel down with Jane. Only I should have thought it easier to do the thing at once.'
'But, Jem! has my uncle said anything? Does he wish me to go?'
James laid down his pen, and stood upright, as if he did not understand her words.
Clara came up to him, saying, 'I believe I ought to do what he may wish.'
'I told you,' said James, as if her words were not worth considering, 'that you need only remain here on her account, who no longer needs you.'
Louis would have left them to themselves, but Clara's glance sued for his protection, and, as he settled himself in his chair, she spoke with more decision.—'Dear James, nothing would make me so happy as to go to dear home; but I do not think grandmamma would like me to leave Uncle Oliver.'