"Constance is well and happy, and charged me to bring you a double share of love and good remembrances," answered the clergyman, slightly laughing.
"Dear old Constance! I say," and Roland dropped his voice to a mysterious whisper, "is not Annabel like her? One might think it the same face."
Mr. Yorke turned and glanced at Annabel--she was talking apart with Gerald. "Yes, there is a good deal of resemblance," he carelessly said, rather preoccupied with marvelling how the young man by his side came to be so well dressed.
Roland, his resentments shallow as the wind, and as fleet in passing, would have shaken hands with Gerald as a matter of course. Gerald managed to evade the honour without any apparent rudeness; he had the room to greet and his silk scarf to unwind, and it really seemed to Roland that it was quite natural he should be overlooked.
"A magnificent funeral," spoke Gerald, glancing askance at Roland's fine suit of mourning, every whit as handsome as his own. "Seven mourning coaches-and-four, and no end of private carriages."
"But I can't say much for their manners, they did not invite me," put in Roland. "I'm older than you, Gerald."
"Aw--ah--by a year or two," croaked Gerald in his worst tone, as to affectation and drawl. "One has, I take it, to--aw--consider the position of a--aw--party on these--aw--occasions, not how old they may be."
"Oh, of course," said Roland, some slight mockery in his good-natured voice. "You are a man of fashion, going in for white-bait and iced champagne, and I'm only an unsuccessful fellow returned like a bad shilling, from Port Natal, and got to work hard for my bread and cheese and beer."
As the hour of William Yorke's return from the funeral was uncertain, but expected to be a late one, it had been decided that the meal prepared should be a tea-dinner--tea and cold meats with it. Gerald was asked to remain for it. A few minutes, and they were seated in the dining-room at a well-spread board, Mrs. Channing presiding; Hamish, with his bright face, his genial hospitality, and his courtly manners, facing her. Roland and Annabel were on one side, the clergyman and Gerald on the other. Miss Nelly, on a high chair, wedged herself in between her mamma and Roland.
"Treason!" cried Hamish. "Who said little girls were to be at table?"