All bar the best of them-- there was naught weak about him, yet he dropped off in blossom-time." "Ay, ay, poor lad," said the elder of the women in a whisper, "pity of the boy.

He'd have taken the load on his shoulders to-day better than yonder white child." "Hold thy tongue and come and take thy look at the old Squire's last lying-place." Roger overheard none of their talk, but wandered on, lonely, but angry with himself for feeling as unemotional as he did.

He told the coachman he would walk home, and started along the half-thawed lanes, hoping that the five miles solitary walk would help to bring him into a frame of mind more appropriate to the occasion.
But try as he would, his mind wandered; first to his mother; then to Maxfield and the villagers; then to his pet schemes for a model village; then to Armstrong and his studies; then to a certain pair of foils that hung in his room; then to the possibility of a yacht next summer; then to the county festivities next winter, with perhaps a ball at Maxfield; then to his approaching majority, and all the delights of unfettered manhood; then-- He had got so far at the end of a mile, when he heard steps tramping through the mud behind him.
It was Mr Armstrong.
The boy's first impulse was to put on an air of dejection he was far from feeling; but his honesty came to his rescue in time.
"Hullo, Armstrong! I'm so glad it's you.

You'll never guess what I was thinking about when I heard you ?" "About being elected M.P.for the county ?" asked the tutor gravely.
"How did you guess that?
I tried to think about other things, you know, but--" "Luckily you chose to be natural instead.

Well, I hope you'll be elected, when the time comes." The two beguiled their walk in talk which, if not exactly what might have been expected of mourners, at least served to restore the boy's highly-strung mind to its proper tone, and to make the aspect of things in general brighter for him than it had been when he started so dismally from the graveyard.
"Now," said he, with a sigh, as they entered the house, "now comes the awful business of reading the will.