except that I shall be delighted to answer any questions--any questions at all." A few moments later, the lawyer mounted his dog-cart and rattled off to enjoy a pleasant drive homeward. Then the company spoke its mind, and Mary Lezzard's clay might well have turned under that bitter hornet-buzz of vituperation. Some said little, but had not strength or self-command to hide tears; some cursed and swore. Mr. Lezzard wept unheeded; Mrs. Hicks likewise wept. Clement sat staring into the flushed faces and angry eyes, neither seeing the rage manifested before him, nor hearing the coarse volleys of reproach. Then in his turn he attracted attention; and hard words, wasted on the dead, hurtled like hail round his ears, with acid laughter, and bitter sneers at his own tremendous awakening. Stung to the quick, the lame wheelwright, Charles Coomstock, gloated on the spectacle of Clement's dark hour, and heaped abuse upon his round-eyed, miserable mother. The raw of his own wound found a sort of salve in this attack; and all the other poor, coarse creatures similarly found comfort in their disappointment from a sight of more terrific mortification than their own. Venomous utterances fell about Clement Hicks, but he neither heard nor heeded: his mind was far away with Chris, and the small shot of the Coomstocks and the thunder of the Chowns alike flew harmlessly past him. He saw his sweetheart's sorrow, and her grief, as yet unborn, was the only fact that much hurt him now. The gall in his own soul only began to sicken him when his eye rested on his mother. Then he rose and departed to his home, while the little, snuffling woman ran at his heels, like a dog. Not until he had escaped the tempest of voices, and was hidden from the world, did the bee-keeper allow his own cruel disappointment to appear. Then, while his mother wept, he lifted up his voice and cursed God. As his relations had won comfort by swearing at him, so now he soothed his soul unconsciously in blasphemies. Then followed a silence, and his mother dared to blame him and remind him of an error. "You wouldn't turn the bee-butts when she died, though I begged and prayed of 'e. Oh, if you'd awnly done what an auld woman, an' she your mother, had told 'e! Not so much as a piece of crape would 'e suffer me to tie 'pon 'em. An' I knawed all the while the hidden power o' bees." Presently he left her, and went to tell Chris. She greeted him eagerly, then turned pale and even terrified as she saw the black news in his face.