“He’s a fine man,” she remarked in a querulous tone; “he’ll look grand in his cloak and scarf when he stands over my grave with his hat off; and I think (though Dan’el, you understand is to be chief-mourner) that he and his brother had better follow me side by side, and their two sons after them.”

How little Laura and Mrs. Peter Melcombe had ever thought about these old men, or supposed that they were frequently present to the mother’s mind.  And yet now there seemed to be evidence that this was the case.

Two or three guarded questions asked the next day brought answers which showed her to be better acquainted with their circumstances than she commonly admitted.  She had always possessed a portrait in oils of her son Daniel.  It had been painted before he left home, and kept him always living as a beautiful fair-haired youth in her recollection.  She took pains to acquaint herself with his affairs, though she never opened her lips concerning them to those about her.

His first marriage had been disastrous.  His wife had deserted him, leaving him with one child only, a daughter.  Upon the death of this poor woman many years afterwards, he had married a widow whose third husband he was, yet who was still young, scarcely so old as his daughter.

Concerning this lady and her children the poor old mother-in-law continually cogitated, having a common little photographic likeness of her in which she tried to find the wifely love and contentment and all the other endearing qualities she had heard of.  For at rare intervals one or other of her sons would write to her, and then she always perceived that the second Mrs. Daniel Mortimer made her husband happy.  She would be told from time to time that he was much attached to young Brandon, the son of her first marriage, and that from her three daughters by her second marriage he constantly received the love and deference due to a father.

But this cherished wife had now died also, and had left Daniel Mortimer with one son, a fine youth already past childhood.

Old Madam Melcombe’s heart went into mourning for her daughter-in-law whom she had never seen.  None but the husband, whose idol she was, lamented her longer and more.  Only fifty miles off, but so remote in her seclusion, so shut away, so forgotten; perhaps Mrs. Daniel Mortimer did not think once in a season of her husband’s mother; but every day the old woman had thought of her as a consoler and a delight, and when her favourite son retired she soon took out the photograph again and looked sadly at those features that he had held so dear.

But she did not speak much of either son, only repeating from time to time, “He’s a fine man; they’re fine men, both of them.  They’ll look grand in their scarves and cloaks at my funeral.”

It was not ordained, however, that the funeral should take place yet awhile.

The summer flushed into autumn, then the apples and pears dropped and were wasted in the garden, even the red-streak apples, that in all the cider country are so highly prized.  Then snow came and covered all.