"'Tis perhaps better that poor John is in his grave," he said. Grafton
had a word and a smile for every one about the old place, but little
else, being, as he said, but a younger son and a poor man. I was near to
forgetting the shilling he gave Scipio. 'Twas not so unostentatiously
done but that Mr. Carvel and I marked it. And afterwards I made Scipio
give me the coin, replacing it with another, and flung it as far into the
river as ever I could throw.

As was but proper to show his sorrow at the death of the old chaplain he
had loved so much, Grafton came to the Hall drest entirely in black. He
would have had his lady and Philip, a lad near my own age, clad likewise
in sombre colours. But my Aunt Caroline would none of them, holding it
to be the right of her sex to dress as became its charms. Her silks and
laces went but ill with the low estate my uncle claimed for his purse,
and Master Philip's wardrobe was twice the size of mine. And the family
travelled in a coach as grand as Mr. Carvel's own, with panels wreathed
in flowers and a footman and outrider in livery, from which my aunt
descended like a duchess. She embraced my grandfather with much warmth,
and kissed me effusively on both cheeks.

"And this is dear Richard?" she cried. "Philip, come at once and greet
your cousin. He has not the look of the Carvels," she continued volubly,
"but more resembles his mother, as I recall her."

"Indeed, madam," my grandfather answered somewhat testily, "he has the
Carvel nose and mouth, though his chin is more pronounced. He has
Elizabeth's eyes."

But my aunt was a woman who flew from one subject to another, and she
had already ceased to think of me. She was in the hall. "The dear old