such a strain about the inquest on her father's body?

The funeral had seemed a function by itself, with some guidance from the
undertaker and still more from Mr. Cowl. Villagers and district
acquaintances had been many at the ceremony, but relatives rare. Mr. Moze's
four younger brothers were all in the Colonies; Mrs. Moze had apparently no
connections. Madame Piriac, daughter of Mr. Moze's first wife by that
lady's first husband, had telegraphed sympathies from Paris. A cousin or so
had come in person from Woodbridge for the day.

It was from the demeanour of these cousins, grave men twice her age or
more, that Audrey had first divined her new importance in the world. Their
deference indicated that in their opinion the future mistress of Flank Hall
was not Mrs. Moze, but Audrey. Audrey admitted that they were right. Yet
she took no pleasure in issuing commands. She spoke firmly, but she said to
herself: "There is no backbone to this firmness, and I am a fraud." She had
always yearned for responsibility, yet now that it was in her hand she
trembled, and she would have dropped it and run away from it as from a
bomb, had she not been too cowardly to show her cowardice.

The instance of Aguilar, the head-gardener and mechanic, well illustrated
her pusillanimity. She loathed Aguilar; her mother loathed him; the
servants loathed him. He had said at the inquest that the car was in
perfect order, but that Mr. Moze was too excitable to be a good driver.
His evidence was true, but the jury did not care for his manner. Nor did
the village. He had only two good qualities--honesty and efficiency; and
these by their rarity excited jealousy rather than admiration. Audrey
strongly desired to throw the gardener-mechanic upon the world; it
nauseated her to see his disobliging face about the garden. But he remained
scathless, to refuse demanded vegetables, to annoy the kitchen, to