“This is very stupid! And I am getting hungry!” said Mrs. Aylett, aside to her lord, as she stood near a front window, tapping the floor with her feet, while vehicle after vehicle received its load and rolled off. “We shall be the last on the ground. Herbert! can't you intimate to Mabel that we are impatient to be gone?” “I don't know where she is!” growled the brother, for once non-complaisant to her behest, and not stirring from the chair in the corner into which he had dropped at his entrance. His head hung upon his breast, and he appeared to study the lining of his hat-crown, balancing the brim by his forefingers between his knees. Mrs. Aylett had lowered her veil in the burying-ground or on her way thither, but it was a flimsy mass of black lace--richly wrought, yet insufficient to hide the paleness of the upper part of her visage. Mr. Aylett watched and wondered, with but one definite idea in his brain beyond the resolve to ferret out the entire mystery in his stealthy, taciturn fashion. Herbert Dorrance had been, in some manner, compromised by his association with this Chilton, had reason to dread exposure from him, and his sister was the confidante of his guilty secret. “I shall know all about it in due season,” thought the master of himself and his dependents. Not that he meant to extort or wheedle it from his consort's keeping, but he had implicit faith in his own detective talents. “Here she is at last!” he said, when Mabel came down the staircase, holding Aunt Rachel's hand, and talking low and earnestly, her noble face and even gliding step a refreshing contrast to Mrs. Aylett's nervousness and Herbert's dogged sullenness. “I am sorry I have kept you so long, but there will be less dust than if we had gone sooner. The other carriages will have had time to get out of our way,” she said, pleasantly. “Winston,” coming up to her brother, and speaking in an undertone, “will it be quite convenient for you to send for Aunt Rachel on next Friday?” “Entirely! The carriage shall be at your service at any hour or day you wish,” with more cordiality than was common with him. However treacherous others might be in their reserve and half-confessions, here was one who had never deceived him or knowingly misled him to believe her better, or otherwise, than she was. Honesty and truth were stamped upon her face by a life-long practice of these homely virtues--not by meretricious arts. It was tardy justice, but he rendered it without grudging, if not heartily.