At this moment there was a most ominous crack, whereon Edith, who had entered unobserved, remarked mildly:
“If I were you, Rupert, I should put it on the floor first, for that—Ah! I thought so!”
As she spoke, the poor top-shelf buckled and broke, and down came the monument with a crash. Rupert sprang at it, dumb with fear, lifting it in his strong arms as though it were a toy.
“Thank Heaven!” he ejaculated, “it isn’t injured.”
“No,” said Edith, “but the bookcase is.”
Then he set to work to find another place for it, this time, at his mother’s suggestion, on the ground. There remained, however, the Osiris, a really magnificent bronze, between two and three feet in height, which could not possibly be accommodated.
“I know,” said Rupert, and shouldering the god, he marched it off downstairs.
“Do you think, Cousin Mary,” asked Edith, as she watched him depart with this relic of the past, “that Rupert could be persuaded to remove those two shabby tombstones also?”
Mrs. Ullershaw shook her head.
“No. Please don’t mention it, dear. He has set his heart on having them here, and says he has been thinking how nice they would look in this room for years. Besides, he would only take them into the dining-room.”