It was a great funeral. All the important people of that side of the county--or their carriages--were there. An hour before the _cortège_ arrived, Sir Giles’ chair, an object of curiosity to all the village boys, was brought down to the gate of the churchyard, that he might follow his wife to the grave’s side. And a great excitement had arisen in the village itself. Under any circumstances, Lady Piercey’s funeral, the carriages and the flowers, and the mutes and the black horses, would have produced an impression; but that impression was increased now by the excitement of a very different kind which mingled with it. Patty Hewitt, of the Seven Thorns, now Mrs. Gervase Piercey, would be there; and there was not a house, from the Rectory downwards, in which the question was not discussed--what would happen? Would Patty receive the tacit recognition of being allowed to take her place along with her husband. Her husband! could he be anybody’s husband, the Softy? Would the marriage stand? Would Sir Giles allow it? The fact that it was Sir Giles gave the eager spectators their only doubt--or hope. Had it been Lady Piercey, she would never have allowed it. She would have thrown back the pretender from the very church-door. She would have rejected Patty, thrust her out of the way, seized her son, and dragged him from the girl who had entrapped him. At the very church-door! Everybody, from the rector down to the sexton’s wife, felt perfectly convinced of that. But it would not be Lady Piercey she would have to deal with. Lady Piercey, though she filled so great a position in the ceremonial, would have nothing to say on the subject; and it was part of the irony of fate, felt by everybody, though none were sufficiently instructed to call it by that name, that she should be there, incapable of taking any share in what would have moved her so deeply--triumphed over in her coffin by the adversary with whom, living, she would have made such short work. There was something tragic about this situation which made the bystanders hold their breath. And no one knew what Patty was about to do. That she would claim her share in the celebration, and, somehow, manage to take a part in it, no one doubted; but how she was to accomplish this was the exciting uncertainty that filled all minds. It troubled the rector as he put on his surplice to meet the silent new-comer, approaching with even more pomp than was her wont the familiar doors of her parish church. There was not much more sentiment than is inseparable from that last solemnity in the minds of her neighbours towards Lady Piercey. She had not been without kindness of a practical kind. Doles had been made and presents given in the conventional way without any failure; but nobody had loved the grim old lady. There was nothing, therefore, to take off the interest in the other more exciting crisis. “Rattle her bones Over the stones, She’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns.”