“My dear Winston, you must recollect what an insufferable headache I had that day.”
“Don't have one to-day,” ordered her husband laconically. “Mabel, do you care to go?”
“By all means. I would not fail, even in seeming, in rendering respect to one I used to like so much, and whose kindness to me was unvarying. You have no objection, Herbert?”
“None. I may accompany you—the day being fine, and the roads in tolerable order.”
The funeral was conducted with the disregard of what are, in other regions, established customs that distinguish such occasions in the rural districts of Virginia.
Written notices had been sent out, far and near, the day before, announcing that the services would begin at two o'clock, but when the Aylett party arrived at a quarter of an hour before the time specified, there was no appearance of regular exercises of any kind. A dozen carriages besides theirs were clustered about the front gate, and a long line of saddle-horses tethered to the fence. Knots of gentlemen in riding costume dotted the lawn and porches, and within-doors ladies sat, or walked at their ease in the parlor and dining room, or gathered in silent tearfulness around the open coffin in the wide central hall.
The bed-room of the deceased was a roomy apartment in a wing of the building, and to this Mabel was summoned before she could seat herself elsewhere.
“Miss Mary's compliments and love, ma'am; and she says won't you please step in thar, and set with Mistis' friends and relations?” was the audible message delivered to her by Mrs. Trent's spry waiting-maid.
Herbert looked dubious, and Mrs. Aylett enlarged her fine eyes in a manner that might mean either superciliousness or well-bred amazement. But Mabel was neither surprised nor doubtful as to the proper course for her to pursue. Time was when she was as much at home here as Rosa herself, and Mrs. Tazewell's partiality for her was shared by others of the family. That she had met none of them in ten or twelve years, did not at a season like the present dampen their affection. They would rather on this account seize upon the opportunity of honoring publicly their mother's old favorite.
The chamber was less light than the hall she traversed to reach it.