"
"They will understand. And Reggie could not have stood it. It was painful
enough as it was," Sir Francis said.
It had been very painful. He thought of the figure of the poor mother,
tearless, looking down into the little grave; of the poor weeping girls
clinging to her. Franky's common little school had attended, and stood,
marshalled by the meagre young master in charge, at a distance, but the
small son of the once despised cutler had advanced, pushed forwards
encouragingly by his comrades, and dropped upon the coffin a bunch of
flowers gathered from the garden on the road, where Franky and he had
loved to play. No other flowers were there. It was before the day of
floral memorial displays.
"If they would let us bear the funeral expenses, or put up a little
monument in the cemetery, or a window in their church?" Ada suggested.
"If we could do something to help them to make a living," Sir Francis
said.
The day of Franky's funeral had been the first to bring home the fact that
summer was gone. The chapel had been cold and bleak, and while they stood
around the grave it began to rain. In the drawing-room at Cashelthorpe the
fire had been lit, and tea awaited the brother and sister. Consoling as
these comforts were they could not dispel the sadness which oppressed the
kind heart of Ada Forcus.
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