So great a man as Sir Richard Yorke must of course be honoured with a great funeral. He had died on a Thursday; the interment was fixed for the next Friday week: which, taking the heat of the weather and sundry other trifles into consideration, was a little longer than it need have been. Sir Vincent, his new dignity as head of the Yorke family lying upon him with a due and weighty self-importance, was determined (like Jonas Chuzzlewit of wide memory) that the public should see he did not grudge to his late father any honour in the shape of plumes and mutes and coaches and show, that it was in his power to accord to him. There were three costly coffins, one of them of lead, and at the very least three and sixty sets of towering feathers. So that Portland Place was as a gala that day, and windows and pavements were alike filled with sight-gazers.

The Rev. William Yorke, Minor Canon of Helstonleigh Cathedral, Chaplain of Hazledon, and Rector of Coombe Lee, was bidden to it. He was not very nearly related to the deceased (his father and Sir Richard had been second cousins), but he was undoubtedly a rising man in the Church, and Sir Vincent thought fit to remember the connection. The clergyman stood in the relationship of brother-in-law to Hamish Channing; and it was at Hamish\'s house he stayed during the brief stay--two days--of his sojourn in town.

Another, honoured with an invitation, was Gerald Yorke. Roland was not of a particularly exacting disposition, but he did think he, the eldest, ought not to have been passed over for his younger brother. Oughts don\'t go for much, however, in some things, as Roland knew. Gerald belonged to the great world: he had, fashionable chambers, fashionable friends, fashionable attire, and a fashionable drawl; his private embarrassments were nothing to Sir Vincent; in fact they might be said to be fashionable too: and so Gerald, the consequential, was bidden to a seat in a mourning-coach, with feathers nodding on the four horses\' heads.

Roland was ignored. Not more entirely so than if Sir Vincent had never heard there was such a man in the world. A lawyer\'s clerk, enjoying a pound a week and a turn-up bedstead, who took copying home to do at twopence a page, and avowed he had just been nearly on the point of turning hot-pie vendor, was clearly not an individual fit to be suffered in contact with a deceased baronet, even though it were only to follow him to the tomb of his forefathers. But, though Roland was not there, his master was Mr. Greatorex. And Mr. Greatorex, as solicitor and confidential man of business to the late Sir Richard, occupied no unimportant post in the procession.

It was late in the afternoon; and the mortal remains, bereft of all their attendant pomp and plumes and scutcheons had been left in their resting-place, when a mourning coach drew up to Mr. Channing\'s, out of which stepped William and Gerald Yorke. Roland, happening to be there, watched the descent from the drawing-room window side by side with Nelly Channing, and it may be questioned which of the two looked on with the more unsophisticated interest. Mr. Greatorex had not been quite so unmindful of Roland\'s claims to be considered as Sir Vincent was, and had told him he might take holiday on the day of his uncle\'s funeral, by remaining away from the office.

Roland obeyed one portion of it literally--the taking holiday. It never occurred to Roland that he might turn the day to profit, by putting his shoulder to the wheel, and his fingers to copying; holiday was holiday, and he took it as such. Rigged out in a handsome new suit of black (made in haste by Lord Carrick\'s tailor), black gloves, and a band of cloth on his hat, Roland spent the forepart of the day in sightseeing. As many showplaces as could be gone into for nothing, or next to nothing, he went to; beginning with Madame Tussaud\'s waxwork, for which somebody gave him admission, and ending with a live giantess down in Whitechapel. Late in the afternoon, and a little tired, he arrived at Hamish Channing\'s, and was rewarded by seeing Annabel. Mrs. Bede Greatorex (gracious that day) had given Miss Channing permission to spend the evening there to meet her sister\'s husband, the Rev. William Yorke. Hamish, just in from his office, sat with them. Nelly Channing, her nose flattened against the windowpane, shared with Roland the delight of the descent from the coach. Its four black horses and their lofty plumes, struck on the child\'s mind with a sensation of awe that nearly overpowered the admiration. She wore a white frock with black sash, and had her sleeves tied up with black ribbons. Mrs. Channing, herself in black silk, possessed a large sense of the fitness of things, and deemed it well to put the child in these ribbons today, when two of the mourners would be returning there from the funeral.

They came upstairs, William and Gerald Yorke, and entered the drawing-room, the silk scarves on their shoulders, and the flowing hat-bands of crape sweeping the ground. Nelly backed into a corner, and stood there staring at the attire. It was the first time the clergyman and Roland had met for many years. As may have been gathered during back pages, Roland did not hold his cousin in any particular admiration, but he knew good manners (as he would himself have phrased it) better than to show aught but civility now. In fact, Roland\'s resentment was very much like that of a great many more of us--more talk than fight. They shook hands, Roland helped him to take off the scarf, and for a few moments they were absorbed in past interests. Whatever Roland\'s old prejudices might have been he could not deny that the Rev. William Yorke was good-looking as of yore; a tall, slender, handsome man of four-and-thirty now, bearing about him the stamp of a successful one; his fresh countenance was genial and kind, although a touch of the noted Yorke pride sat on it.

That pride, or perhaps a consciousness of his own superiority, for William Yorke was a good man and thought well of himself for it, prevented his being so frankly cordial with Roland as he might have been. Roland\'s many faults in the old days (as the clergyman had deemed them), and the one great fault which had brought humiliation to him in two ways, were very present to his mind tonight. Slighting remarks made by Gerald on his brother during the day, caused Mr. Yorke to regard Roland as no better than a mauvais sujet, down in the world, and not likely to get up in it. Gerald, on the contrary, he looked upon as a successful and rising man. Mr. Yorke saw only the surface of things, and could but judge accordingly.

"How is Constance?" enquired Roland. "I sent her word not to marry you, you know."

"Constance is well and happy, and charged me to bring you a double share of love and good remembrances," answered the clergyman, slightly laughing.

"Dear old Constance! I say," and Roland dropped his voice to a mysterious whisper, "is not Annabel like her? One might think it the same face."

Mr. Yorke turned and glanced at Annabel--she was talking apart with Gerald. "Yes, there is a good deal of resemblance," he carelessly said, rather preoccupied with marvelling how the young man by his side came to be so well dressed.

Roland, his resentments shallow as the wind, and as fleet in passing, would have shaken hands with Gerald as a matter of course. Gerald managed to evade the honour without any apparent rudeness; he had the room to greet and his silk scarf to unwind, and it really seemed to Roland that it was quite natural he should be overlooked.

"A magnificent funeral," spoke Gerald, glancing askance at Roland\'s fine suit of mourning, every whit as handsome as his own. "Seven mourning coaches-and-four, and no end of private carriages."

"But I can\'t say much for their manners, they did not invite me," put in Roland. "I\'m older than you, Gerald."

"Aw--ah--by a year or two," croaked Gerald in his worst tone, as to affectation and drawl. "One has, I take it, to--aw--consider the position of a--aw--party on these--aw--occasions, not how old they may be."

"Oh, of course," said Roland, some slight mockery in his good-natured voice. "You are a man of fashion, going in for white-bait and iced champagne, and I\'m only an unsuccessful fellow returned like a bad shilling, from Port Natal, and got to work hard for my bread and cheese and beer."

As the hour of William Yorke\'s return from the funeral was uncertain, but expected to be a late one, it had been decided that the meal prepared should be a tea-dinner--tea and cold meats with it. Gerald was asked to remain for it. A few minutes, and they were seated in the dining-room at a well-spread board, Mrs. Channing presiding; Hamish, with his bright face, his genial hospitality, and his courtly manners, facing her. Roland and Annabel were on one side, the clergyman and Gerald on the other. Miss Nelly, on a high chair, wedged herself in between her mamma and Roland.

"Treason!" cried Hamish. "Who said little girls were to be at table?"

"Mamma did," answered quick Nelly. "Mamma said I should have a great piece of fowl and some tongue."

"Provided you were silent, and not troublesome," put in Mrs. Channing.

"I\'ll keep her quiet," said Roland. "Nelly shall whisper only to me."

Miss Nelly\'s answer was to lay her pretty face close to Roland\'s. He left some kisses on it.

Gerald sat next to Hamish and opposite to Annabel. Remembering the state of that gentleman\'s feelings towards Mr. Channing, it may be wondered that he condescended to accept his hospitality. Two reasons induced him to it. Any quarters were more acceptable than his own just now, and he had no invitation for the evening, even had it been decent to show himself in the great world an hour after leaving his uncle in the grave. The other reason was, that he was just now working some ill to Hamish, and, wished to appear extra friendly to avert suspicion.

"I hope you have not dined, Roland," remarked Hamish, supplying him with a large plate of pigeon-pie.

"Well, I have, and I\'ve not," replied Roland, beginning upon the tempting viand. "I bought three sausage-rolls at one o\'clock, down east way: it would have been my dinner but for this."

Gerald flicked his delicate cambric handkerchief out of his pocket and held it for a moment to his nose, as if he were warding off some bad odour that brought disgust to him. Sausage-rolls! Whether they, or the unblushing candour of the avowal were the worst, he hardly knew.

"Sausage-rolls must be delicacies!" he observed with a covert sneer. And Roland looked across.

"They are not as good as pigeon-pie. But they cost only twopence apiece: and I had but sixpence with me. I have to regulate my appetite according to my means," he added with a pleasant laugh and his mouth full of crust and gravy.

"Roland--as you have, in a manner touched upon the subject--I should like to ask what you think of doing," interposed William Yorke, in a condescending but kindly tone. "You seem to have no prospects whatever."

"Oh I shall get along," cheerfully answered Roland with a side glance at Miss Channing. "Perhaps you\'ll see me in housekeeping in a year\'s time from this."

"In housekeeping!"

"Yes: with a house of my own--and, something else. I\'m not afraid. I have begun to put my shoulder to the wheel in earnest. If I don\'t get on, it shall not be from lack of working for it."

"How have you begun to put your shoulder to the wheel?"

"Well--I take home copying to do in my spare time after office hours. I have been doing it in earnest over three weeks now."

"And how much do you earn at it weekly?" continued William Yorke.

A slight depression from its bright exultation passed over Roland\'s ingenuous face. Hamish saw it, and laughed. Hamish was quite a confidant, for Roland carried to him all his hopes and their tiresome drawbacks.

"I can tell you: I added it up," said Roland. "Taking the three weeks on the average, it has been two-and-twopence a week."

"Two-and-twopence a week!" echoed Will............