The day of Sir Walter Penton’s funeral was a great if gloomy holiday for the whole country about. A man so old, and so little known to the neighborhood, could not be greatly mourned. He had kept up, no doubt, the large charities which it is the worthy privilege of a great family to maintain for the benefit of the country, but he had never appeared in them, and few people associated a personal kindness with the image of the stately old man who had been seen so seldom for years past. The people in the village and all the houses scattered along the road were full of excitement and curiosity. The carriages which kept arriving all the morning gradually raised the interest of the spectators toward the great climax of the funeral procession, which it was expected would be half a mile long, and embraced everybody of any importance in the neighborhood, besides the long line of the tenantry. And then the flowers—that new evidence of somber vanity and extravagant fashion. To see these alone was enough to draw a crowd. In the heart of the winter, just after Christmas, what masses of snowy blossoms, piled up, crushing and spoiling each other—flowers that cost as much as would have fed a parish! The villagers stood with open mouths of wonder. No one there in all their experiences of life—all the weddings, christenings, summer festivals of their recollection—had seen such a display. The procession, headed by no black mournful hearse, such as would have seemed natural to the lookers-on, but by a sort of triumphal car, covered with flowers, drew forth crowds all along the way.

The Pentons, who were now the lords of all—or rather of as little as was practicable, for all that was unentailed naturally went without question to Sir Walter’s daughter—had not a carriage of their own in which to swell the procession. And though they were now naturally in the chief place, they were perhaps the least known of all the rural potentates, great and small, who shook hands in silence, with looks of sympathy more or less solemn, with Mr. Russell Penton after the ceremony was over. Sir Edward, indeed, the new baronet, had known them all in his day; but Walter looked on with a half-defiant shyness, with scarcely an acquaintance in the multitude. And the sensation was very strange to both father and son when all the train had dispersed and they came back to the great house which was henceforward theirs. Mrs. Russell Penton had not since the moment of her father’s death made any show of her grief. She had been entirely stricken down on that day. A frightful combination and mingling of emotions had prostrated her. Grief for her father; ah, yes! He had been perhaps the one individual in the world upon whose full comprehension she had leaned; but in his dying even this had failed her, and she felt that he comprehended her and she him no longer, and that at the last moment his steps had strayed from hers. A more bitter and terrible discovery could not be; and when with that came the sense that all her hopes had failed—that the plans so nearly brought to some practical possibility had all come to nothing—that everything was too late—that, instead of securing her home for an eternal possession, which was what her eager spirit desired, she had only presented herself to the world in the aspect of a grasping woman, endeavoring to take advantage of a poor man and seize his inheritance—when all this became apparent to her, Alicia covered her face and withdrew from the light of day. The loss of one who had been the chief object in her life for so long, the father whom she had loved, was not much more than a pretense (and she felt this too to the bottom of her heart) for the misery that overwhelmed her; which was not grief only, but disappointment almost more bitter than grief; disenchantment and failure mingled with the sorrow and loss, and made them more keen and poignant than words can tell. And she was ashamed that it should be so—ashamed that, when all around her gave her credit for thus profoundly mourning her father, she was mourning in him her own disappointed hopes, her disgust, her failure, as well as the loss her heart had sustained. This consciousness was in itself one of the bitterest parts of her burden. Her husband came into the room with sympathetic looks, her maid stole about on tiptoe, everything was kept in darkness and quiet to soothe her grief. And yet her grief was but a small part of what her proud spirit was suffering. To feel that this was so was almost more than she could bear.

After the first day she would indeed bear it no longer. She would permit no more of that obsequious tenderness which is given to sorrow, but got up and came forth to take her usual place in the house and fulfill her ordinary duties, refusing as much as she could the praises lavished upon her for her self-control and unselfishness and regard for others. She “bore up” wonderfully, everybody said; but Alicia, to do her justice, would have none of the applause which was murmured about her. “I did not expect my father would live forever,” she said, with a tone of impatience to her husband; “and to lie there and think everything over again, is that to be desired? I would rather feel I had some duty still and claims upon me.”

“Oh, many claims,” he said; “but you must not overtask your strength.”

She had no fear of overtasking her strength, but rather a feeling that if she could get to work—as her maid did, as the house-maids did, to prepare for her departure and the entry of the other family—that would be the thing which would do her good. After the funeral she came out in her deep mourning, out of the library, in which she had been spending that solemn hour, to meet the chief mourners when they returned. It would have pleased her better to have been chief mourner herself; but it had been said on all hands that it would be “too much for her.” So she had spent the time while the slow cortege was winding along the country road and all the gloomy formulas were being fulfilled, by herself in the old man’s favorite room, where everything spoke of him, reading the funeral service over and over, thinking—now they will be there, and there; now arrived at the grave; now leaving him—beside the boys. It was that thought that brought the tears. Beside the boys! They had lain there for twenty years and more, but she could still shed tears for them; for all the rest her eyes were dry. And when the carriages came back she came out quite composed, though so pale, in all the solemnity of her mourning, covered with crape, to the drawing-room to receive them. She had bidden her husband to bring the new proprietor back with him, that everything might at once be said which remained to say. She gave her hand to Edward, who came forward to meet her, he too in deep mourning; but her eye went beyond him to “the boy” who stood behind, and whose slight young figure seemed to hold itself more erect, and with an air of greater self-belief than when she saw him last. What wonder! he was the heir.

“I wanted to see you,” she said. “Gerald will have told you—that everything might be put at once on the footing we wish it to be.”

“I told you, Alicia, that your cousin would not hurry you. He is as anxious as I am that you should have no trouble. We have talked it all over—”

“Why shouldn’t I have trouble?” she said. “There is no reason in the world for sparing me my share of the roughness. I am better so. Edward, if you should wish to get possession soon, you and your wife, you may be sure I will put no obstacles in your way.”

“I wish you would believe that we have no wish, no desire. We want you to act exactly as may suit you best—to consider yourself still in your own house.”

“That is impossible,” she said, quickly; “mine it is not, nor ever was; and now that he is gone who was its natural master—I know perfectly well how considerate you will be. What I am expressing is my own wish—not to be in your way—not to put off your settling down. You have a large family—you will want to settle everything.”

At this Sir Edward began to clear his throat, and it took him some time to get out the next words.

“Alicia,” he said, “we have been thinking a great deal about it, my wife and I.”

“Yes, you must naturally have thought about it. Mrs. Penton”—here the speaker paused, grew red, hesitated a little, and then went on—“she must wish to have everything decided about the removal, and to know what furniture will be wanted, and a great deal besides. If you would like to bring her to see for herself, and judge what is necessary—I hope you understand me—my husband and I will give every facility.”

“My dear, your cousin knows all that,” said Russell Penton, not without impatience.

“It was something else I wanted to say. My wife—is a woman of great sense, Alicia.”

Mrs. Russell Penton made a slight bow of assent. She had nothing to do with his wife. She did not like to hear of her at all, the woman who was now Lady Penton, and yet was a woman of no account, an insignificant mother of a family. This description, which the person to whom it belongs is generally somewhat proud of, is often to women without that distinction a contemptuous way of dismissing an individual of whom nothing else can be said. Edward Penton’s wife was no more than that. Sense! Oh, yes, she might have sense, so far as her brood and its wants were concerned.

“She always thought—an opinion which, however, she did not express till very lately, and in which I did not agree—that this house, which you and my poor uncle kept up so splendidly—”

Alicia gave an impatient wave of her hand. She could not see why Sir Walter should be called poor because he was dead.

“Yes,” said Sir Edward, “it has been splendidly kept up; nothing could be more beautiful, or in better taste. You always had admirable taste, Alicia; and my poor dear uncle—”

“Don’t,” she cried; “what is it you want to say? I beg your pardon, Edward, if I am impatient. For Heaven’s sake come to the point.”

“I know,” he said, with a compassionate look, “grief is irritable. My wife has always been of opinion that for us, with our large family, the possession of Penton would be no advantage. We could not keep it up as it has been kept up. The entailed estates by themselves are not—you must have a little patience with me, my dear Alicia, or I never can get out what I have to say.”

She seated herself with a sigh of endurance. All this was intolerable to her. She wanted nothing to be said, but simply that she should go away, who no longer could keep possession, and that they who had the right should come in—no struggle about it, not a word said, not a lament on her side, and if possible not a flourish of trumpets on theirs—at least, not anything that she should hear. It was like Edward to maunder on, though he must have known that she could not endure it. And his wife with her sense! But an appearance of dignity must be kept up, and she must, she knew, hear out what he had to say.

“Go on,” said Russell Penton, “you can understand that she is not able for very much.” And he came and stood by the back of his wife’s chair with his usual undemonstrative self-forgetfulness, full of sympathy for her, though he did not approve of her—all of which things she knew.

“It comes to this,” said Edward Penton, a little confused in his story; “I did not agree with her at all. When we entered into the negotiations—which have come to nothing—I did it without any heart. It was only on the morning I spent here, you know, the morning that—it was only then I perceived that my wife was right. We have talked it over since, Alicia, and I have a proposal to make you. If you like to remain—”

She got up from her chair suddenly, clinching her hands in impatience. “No, no, no, no,” she cried, almost violently, “I want to hear nothing more about it. There is nothing, nothing more to say.”

“If you would but hear me out, Alicia! this that I’m speaking of would really be a favor to us. We have not the means to keep it up. We have things to think of, of far more importance than the gardens and glass and all that. We have our children to think of. The house is a great deal to you—and—and it’s something to me that know it so well; but to them—to them it doesn’t matter,” he said, with a sort of contempt for the Pentons who were only half Pentons though they were his children. “I would rather a great deal you kept it and lived in it, and remained as you have been.”

There was a curious little by-play going on in the meantime. Walter listened to his father with consternation, moving a step nearer, looking on eagerly as if desiring to interfere in his own person—while over the face of Russell Penton there came a shade of anxiety, suspense, and annoyance. He was sufficiently calm to put out his hand keeping Walter back; but he was no longer a mere spectator of the interview. Alarm was in his face; he had thought he had escaped, and here was the chain again ready to drag him back. Sir Edward turned to him at the end of his little speech with a direct appeal, “Speak to her, Russell; I make the offer in a friendly spirit. There’s nothing behind,” he said.

“That I am sure of, but it is for Alicia to answer. She must decide, not me.”

“I have decided,” said Mrs. Penton, with something like suppressed passion. “No; if it had been mine I should have been glad, why should I deny it? I was born here. I like it better than any other place in the world. But there are some things more important than even the house in which one was born. Go back to your wife, Edward, and tell her I dare say she understands many things, but me she doesn’t understand. To owe my house to your civility and hers, to hold it at your pleasure, no, no—a thousand times. Perhaps you mean well—I will say I am sure you mean well; but I couldn’t do it. Gerald, there’s been enough of this, I should like to go away.”

Over Russell’s face there shot a gleam of satisfaction; but he did not let it appear in what he said. “Alicia, you must not be hasty. Your cousin can mean nothing but kindness. Let me tell him you will think of it. He does not want an immediate answer. You might be sorry after—”

“Gerald! it is not a thing you have ever wished.”

“No, I am like your cousin’s wife,” he said, with a slight laugh. “But what has that to do with it? It is for you to judge; and you might repent—”

She cast a glance round the stately room, with all the beautiful furniture so carefully chosen to enhance and embellish it. Can one help the hideous thoughts that against one’s will come into one’s mind? Swift as lightning there flashed before her a picture of what it would be—the pictures gone, the rich carpets, in which the foot sunk, the hangings of satin and velvet—and the whole furnished as an upholsterer would do it, called in in a hurry, and kept to the lowest possible estimate; and then the children of all ages, rampant, running over everything. She saw this in her imagination, and with it at the same instant felt a shrinking of horror from the desecration, and a horrible momentary exultation. Yes, exultation! over the difference, over the contrast. It was better so; the stateliness and splendor must sink with her reign. With the others, her supplanters, would come in squalor, pettiness, all the unlovely details of poverty. It gave her a sense almost of guilty pleasure that the contrast should be so marked beyond all possibility of mistake.

“No,” she said, with forced composure, “I shall not repent. This chapter of life is over. It has been long, far longer than is usually permitted to a woman. I shall not interfere with you, Edward; it is your place, and you must take it. Good-bye; it was only to tell you that no hinderance should be raised on my part—that as soon almost as you please—as soon as it is possible—”

“There was something else, Alicia, you meant to say.”

“What else?” Her eyes followed her husband’s to where Walter stood; then a sudden flush covered her pale face. “Yes, that is true—it is concerning your son. Mr. Rochford will give you the papers, and my husband will explain. My father had an idea, I can not think how it arose; but he had an idea, and it is my business to carry it out.”

“Then is this all?” cried Edward Penton; for his part, he was not even curious as to what had been done for Walter. He almost resented it as she did. “Is this all? You will not allow us to offer—you will not listen. After all, if I am my poor uncle’s successor I am still your cousin, Alicia. It is not my fault.”

“It is no one’s fault,” she said.

“And we all feel for you. Even were it a sacrifice we should be glad to make it. My wife—”

Mrs. Russell Penton rose hurriedly. “You are very kind,” she said. “Good-bye, Edward; I have had a great deal to try me, and I don’t think I can bear any more.”

She hurried out of the room as the servant came in with a message. She could not bear to hear the new title, and yet how could she avoid hearing it? Sir Edward—it was in her ears all the time. And when her husband had said in that cumbrous way, “your cousin’s wife,” there had passed through her mind the “Lady Penton” which he would not say, which she could not say, which seemed to choke her. Lady Penton, her mother’s name! And it was all perfectly just and right. This was what made it so intolerable. They had a right to the name. They had a right to the position. And nothing could be more wretched, envious, miserable than the exasperation in her soul.