Departed then was the glory of his hero, his splendid dimensions shrunk, his effective lustre dulled, his perfect moustache rusted and scraggly, his chin weakened, his pale blue eyes seen to be in force like those of a china doll.

He heard with interest that Squire Cumpston had urged Miss Alvira to divorce her husband, that she had refused, declaring God had joined her to Cousin Bill J. and that no man might put them asunder; that marriage had been raised by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament and was now indissoluble—­an emblem, indeed, of Christ’s union with His Church; and that, as she had made her bed, so would she lie upon it.

Nor was the boy alone in regarding as a direct manifestation of Providence the sudden removal of Cousin Bill J. from this life by means of pneumonia.  For Miss Alvira had ever been esteemed and respected even by those who considered that she sang alto half a note off, while her husband had gradually acquired the disesteem of almost the entire village of Edom.  Many, indeed, went so far as to consider him a reproach to his sex.

Yet there were a few who said that even a pretended observance of the decencies would have been better.  Miss Alvira disagreed with them, however, and after all, as the village wag, Elias Cuthbert, said in the post-office next day, “It was her funeral.”  For Miss Alvira had made no pretense to God; and, what is infinitely harder, she would make none to the world.  She rode to the last resting-place of her husband—­Elias also made a funny joke about his having merely changed resting-places—­decked in a bonnet on which were many blossoms.  She had worn it through years when her heart mourned and life was bitter, when it seemed that God from His infinity had chosen her to suffer the cruellest hurts a woman may know—­and now that He had set her free she was not the one to pretend grief with some lying pall of crepe.  And on the new bonnet she wore to church, the first Sabbath after, there still flowered above her somewhat drawn face the blossoms of an endless girlhood, as if they were rooted in her very heart.  Beneath these blossoms she sang her alto—­such as it was—­with just a hint of tossing defiance.  Yet there was no need for that.  Edom thought well of her.

No one was known to have mourned the departed save an inferior dog he had made his own and been kind to; but this creature had little sympathy or notice, though he was said to have waited three days and three nights on the new earth that topped the grave of Cousin Bill J. For, quite aside from his unfortunate connection, he had not been thought well of as a dog.

CHAPTER X

THE PASSING OF THE GRATCHER; AND ANOTHER