Next to the cane-chair was Hannah’s mahogany bed, which had been stripped.  On the bed lay a massive oaken coffin, and, accurately fitted into the coffin, lay the withered remains of Meshach’s slave.  The prim and spotless bedroom, with its chest of drawers, its small glass, its three-cornered wardrobe, its narrow washstand, its odd bonnet-boxes, its trunk, its skirts hung inside-out behind the door, its Bible with the spectacle-case on it, its texts, its miniature portraits, its samplers, framed in maple, and its engraving of the infant John Wesley being saved from the fire at Epworth Vicarage, framed in gold, was eloquent of the habits of the woman who had used it, without ambition, without repining, and without hope, save an everlasting hope, for more than fifty years.

Into this room, obedient to the rigid etiquette of an old-fashioned Five Towns funeral, every person asked to the burial was bound to come, in order to take a last look at the departed, and to offer a few words of sympathy to the chief mourner.  As they entered—­Stanway, David Dain, Fred Ryley, Dr. Hawley, Leonora, the servant, and lastly Arthur Twemlow—­unwillingly desecrating the almost saecular modesty of the chamber, Meshach received them one by one with calmness, with detachment, with the air of the curator of the museum.  ‘Here she is,’ his mien indicated.  ‘That is to say, what’s left.  Gaze your fill.’  Beyond a monotonous ‘Thank ye, thank ye,’ in response to expressions of sympathy for him, and of appreciation of Hannah’s manifold excellences, he made no remarks to any one except Leonora and Arthur Twemlow.

‘Has that ginger wine come?’ he asked Leonora anxiously.  The feast after the sepulture was as important, and as strictly controlled by etiquette, as the lying-in-state.  Leonora, who had charge of the meal, was able to give him an affirmative.

‘I’m glad as you’ve come,’ he said to Twemlow.  ’I had a fancy for you to see her again as soon as they told me you was back.  Her makes a good corpse, eh?’

Twemlow agreed.  ‘To die suddenly, that’s the best,’ he murmured awkwardly; he did not know what to say.

‘Her was a good sister, a good sister!’ Meshach pronounced with an emotion which was doubtless genuine and profound, but which superficially resembled that of an examiner awarding pass-marks to a pupil.  ‘By the way, Twemlow,’ he added as Arthur was leaving the room, ‘didst ever thrash that business out wi’ our John?  I’ve been thinking over a lot of things while I was fast abed up yon’.’

Arthur stared at him.

‘Thou knowst what I mean?’ continued Meshach, putting his thin tremulous hand on the edge of the coffin in order to rise from the chair.

‘Yes,’ Arthur replied, ’I know.  I haven’t settled it yet, I haven’t had time.’

‘I should ha’ thought thou’dst had time enough, lad,’ said Meshach.