As the little coffin slid over the hatchway into the quiet sea, the sun rose, and a long level beam covered the place where the body had gone down.
Then, with a sudden cry, the mother burst into tears.
CHAPTER V.
A HOME STATION—WHAT MRS. BULLER THOUGHT OF IT—WHAT MAJOR BULLER THOUGHT OF IT.
Riflebury, in the south of England—our next station—was a very lively place. “There was always something going on.” “Somebody was always dropping in.” “People called and stayed to lunch in a friendly way.” “One was sure of some one at afternoon tea.” “What with croquet and archery in the Gardens, meeting friends on the Esplanade, concerts at the Rooms, shopping, and changing one’s novels at the circulating library, one really never had a dull hour.” So said “everybody;” and one or two people, including Major Buller, added that “One never had an hour to one’s self.”
“If you had any one occupation, you’d know how maddening it is,” he exclaimed, one day, in a fit of desperation.
“Any one occupation!” cried Mrs. Buller, to whom he had spoken. “I’m sure, Edward, I’m always busy. I never have a quiet moment from morning to night, it seems to me. But it is so like you men! You can stick to one thing all along, and your meals come to you as if they dropped out of the skies, and your clothes come ready-made from the tailor’s (and very dearly they have to be paid for, too!); and when one is ordering dinner and luncheon, and keeping one’s clothes decent, and looking after the children and the servants, and taking your card, and contriving excuses that are not fibs for you to the people you ought to call on, from week’s end to week’s end—you say one has no occupation.”
“Well, well, my dear,” said the Major, “I know you have all the trouble of the household, but I meant to say that if you had any pursuit, any study——”