Mrs. Coppersley went to the funeral as chief mourner, as Bella resolutely declined to do so. She was sorry for her tyrannical father's violent death, but being very human, found it difficult to forgive him for the way in which he had behaved. He had bullied her and shut her in her room, and finally had drugged her by stealth. But as it turned out it was just as well that he had done so, as thereby she was able to prove that she knew nothing of the crime, even though she was alone in the house. Then again, there was the other side of the question to take--that if Huxham had not administered the laudanum he might have been alive and well at the moment. It seemed to Bella, overstrung with nerves, that some higher powers had dealt out a punishment to the Captain for crimes committed but undiscovered. Certainly she agreed with Tunks that her father had some dark secret in his mind, which led him to isolate himself in the midst of the corn. However, he was dead and buried, so all debts were paid, and Bella sitting in the vast drawing-room of the Manor-house with a church-service open on her lap, tried hard to forget Huxham's bad traits of character, and to remember his good ones. This was somewhat difficult, as the captain had few engaging qualities. But Bella recalled that he had been kind in a gruff sort of way and had never grudged her the best of food and the gaudiest of frocks. Huxham had been one of those so-called good people, who are amiable so long as everything is done according to their liking; but who display the tyrant when crossed. But on the whole he might have been worse, and after all, as she anxiously kept in mind, he was her father. The room wherein she sat, with the blinds down, was opposite the study and was a large apartment sparsely furnished. Huxham did not care for a drawing-room, as he preferred his den, but Mrs. Coppersley had bothered him incessantly until he provided her with furniture for the place. She selected the furniture herself, and what with her brother's stinginess and her own bad taste, the result was woefully bad. The room, spacious, lofty and stately, was decorated as beautifully as was the study, and required the most exquisite furniture to enhance its faded splendours. But Mrs. Coppersley had bought a magenta-hued sofa and many magenta-covered chairs, together with a cheap sideboard, so sticky as to look like a fly catcher, and two arm chairs of emerald green. The inlaid floor she had covered with lineoleum, diapered white and black, and her artistic taste had led her to paint the mellow oak panelling with pink Aspinall's enamel. As the curtains of the many windows were yellow, and the blinds blue, the effect was disastrous, and suggestive of a paint-box. An artist would have died of the confusion of tints, and the barbarism of destroying the oak panels, but Mrs. Coppersley was more than satisfied with the result, and when seated in the drawing-room on Sunday felt herself to be quite the lady.