When the chapel bell rang, and the pair rose to offer their
thanksgiving, Ebbo dutifully offered his support, but was absolutely
unseen, so fondly was Sir Eberhard leaning on his wife; and her
bright exulting smile and shake of the head gave an absolute pang to
the son who had hitherto been all in all to her.
He followed, and, as they passed Friedmund's coffin, he thought his
mother pointed to it, but even of this he was uncertain. The pair
knelt side by side with hands locked together, while notes of praise
rose from all voices; and meantime Ebbo, close to that coffin, strove
to share the joy, and to lift up a heart that WOULD sink in the midst
of self-reproach for undutifulness, and would dislike the thought of
the rude untaught man, holding aloof from him, likely to view him
with distrust and jealousy, and to undo all he had achieved, and
further absorbing the mother, the mother who was to him all the
world, and for whose sake he had given his best years to the child-
wife, as yet nothing to him.
It was reversing the natural order of things that, after reigning
from infancy, he should have to give up at eighteen to one of the
last generation; and some such thought rankled in his mind when the
whole household trooped joyfully out of the chapel to prepare a
banquet for their old new lord, and their young old lord was left
alone.
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