‘With larger, other eyes than ours,’ said Edward piously, and the boy believed it in the confidence of his youth. But how the narrow-minded commonplace man who had been that distinguished civil servant, John Meredith, should all at once have come to this godlike greatness by the mere fact of dying, neither of them could have told. Was it nature in them that asserted it to be so? or some prejudice of education and tradition so deeply woven into their minds that they did not know it to be anything but nature? But be it instinct or be it prejudice, what more touching sentiment ever moved a human bosom? He had not been a man beloved in his life; but he was as the gods now. By-and-by, however--for reverential and tender as this sentiment was, it was neither love nor grief, and could not pretend to the dominion of these monarchs of the soul--the mother and son fell into talk about secondary matters. She had sent for her dressmaker about her mourning, and given orders for as much crape as could be piled upon one not gigantic female figure, and asked anxiously if the boys had done their part--had got the proper depth of hatbands, the black studs, &c., that were wanted. ‘I suppose you may have very dark grey for the mourning; but it must be _very_ dark,’ she said. ‘And you, mother, must you wear that cap--that mountain of white stuff?’ ‘Certainly, my dear,’ said Mrs. Meredith with fervour. ‘You don’t think I would omit any sign of respect? And what do I care whether it is becoming or not? Oh, Edward, your dear papa has a right to all that we can do to show respect.’ There was a faltering in her lip as of something more she had to say, but decorum restrained her. That first day nothing ought to be thought of, nothing should be mentioned, she felt, in which consolation had a part. But when the night came after that long, long day, which they all felt to be like a year, the secret comfort in her heart came forth as she bade her boy good-night. ‘Edward, oh, I wish you had gone years ago, when you might have been a comfort to him! but now that there is no need----’ Here she stopped and kissed him, and looked at him with a smile in her wet eyes, which, out of ‘respect,’ she would no more have suffered to come to her lips than she would have worn pink ribbons in her cap, and said quickly, ‘You need not go to India now.’