"I am quite safe," answered Mrs. Cumberland, with a sickly smile. "The matter's nothing to me, that I should speak of it again."
"Of course not, ma'am. After all Halloa! here it comes!"
This sudden break was caused by the roll of a muffled drum, first advent of the advancing funeral procession. Edmund North had belonged to a local military corps, and was to be attended to the grave with honours. Mrs. Gass drew up the white blind an inch above the Venetian, which enabled them to look out unseen. The road suddenly became lined with spectators; men, women and children collecting one hardly knew from whence.
The band came first--their instruments in rest; then the muffled drum, on which its bearer struck a note now and again. The hearse and three mourning coaches followed, some private carriages, and the soldiers on foot. And that was all: except some straggling spectators in the rear, with Hepburn the undertaker and his men on either side the black coaches. The hearse was exactly opposite Mrs. Cumberland when the band struck up the Dead March in Saul. Suddenly there flashed across her a recollection of the morning, only a very few days ago, when Ellen Adair had been playing that same dirge, and it had grated on Oliver's ear. Her eyes fixed themselves on the hearse as it passed, and she saw in mental vision the corpse lying within. In another moment, the music, her son, the dead, and the fatal letter, all seemed to blend confusedly in her brain: and Mrs. Cumberland sat, down white and faint, and almost insensible. The lady of the house, her eyes riveted on the window, made her comments and suspected nothing of the indisposition.
"Mr. North in the first coach with his white hankecher held to his nose. And well he may hold it, poor berefted gentleman! Mr. Richard is sitting by the side of him. Captain Bohun's on the opposite seat:--and--who's the other? Why! it's young Sidney North. Then they've sent for him from college, or wherever it is he stays at: madam's doings, I'll lay. What a little whipper-snapper of a fellow it is!--like nobody but himself. He'll never be half the man his stepbrothers are."
Mrs. Gass's remarks ceased with the passing of the coach. In her curiosity she did not observe that she received no response. The second coach came in sight, and she began again.
"An old gent, upright as a dart, with snow-white hair and them features called aquiline! A handsome face, if ever I saw one; his eyes as blue and as fine as Captain Bohun's. There's a likeness between 'em. It must be his uncle, Sir Nash. A young man sits next him with a white, unhealthy face; and the other two--why, if I don't believe it's the young Dallorys!"
There was no reply. Mrs. Gass turned to see the reason. Her visitor was sitting back in a chair, a frightfully grey shade upon her face and lips.
"My patience! Don't you feel well, ma'am?"
"I am a little tired," replied Mrs. Cumberland, smiling languidly as she roused herself. "Looking out at passing things always fatigues me."