“Oh, hush, Gervase,” said Mrs. Osborne. “Don’t laugh: you will shock all the people. She is---- very serviceable. She shows---- great sense---- Gervase, why is she here?” He was on the point of laughter again, but was frightened this time by Margaret. “Why, here’s just where she ought to be,” he said, with a suppressed chuckle. “I told you, but you didn’t understand. I almost told---- mother.” Here the half-witted young man paused a little with a sudden air of trouble. “Mother; what’s all this about mother?” he said. “Oh, Gervase! she wanted you so!” “Well,” he cried, “but how could I come when I didn’t know? Ask her. We never heard a word. I remember now. We only came back last night. I thought after all we might find her all right when we came back. Is it--is it true, Meg?” He spoke with a sort of timidity behind Patty’s back, still pulling his cousin’s dress, the grin disappearing from his face, but his hat still on the back of his head, and his fatuous eyes wandering. His attention was only half arrested even by a question of such importance. It moved the surface of his consciousness, and no more; his eye, even while he was speaking, was caught by the unruly action of the horses in one of the carriages far down the avenue, which put a movement of interest into his dull face. “I cannot speak to you about it all here. Come in, and I will tell you everything,” Margaret said. He made a step after her, and then looked back; but Patty was still busily engaged with Sir Giles, and her husband escaped, putting his cousin’s tall figure between himself and her. “I say, are all this lot of people coming here? What are they coming here for? Have I got to talk to all these people, Meg?” He went after her into the library, where already some of the guests were, and where Margaret was immediately occupied, receiving the solemn leave-takings of the county gentry, who had driven so far for this ceremony, but who looked strangely at Gervase, still with his hat on, and who, in presence of such a chief mourner, and of the illness of poor Sir Giles, were eager to get away. A vague story about the marriage had already flashed through the neighbourhood, but the gentlemen were more desirous even of keeping clear of any embarrassment that might arise from it, than of getting “the rights of the story” to carry back to their wives--though that also was a strong motive. Gervase gave a large grip of welcome to several who spoke to him, and laughed, and said it was a fine day, with an apparent indifference to the object of their visit, which chilled the blood of the kindly neighbours. And still more potent than any foolishness he might utter was the sign of the hat on his head, which produced the profoundest impression upon the small solemn assembly, though even Margaret, in the excitement of the crisis altogether, did not notice it for some time.