Nor did she mention them again, excepting with reference to her funeral.
"He's a fine man," she remarked in a querulous tone; "he'll look grand in his cloak and scarf when he stands over my grave with his hat off; and I think (though Dan'el, you understand is to be chief-mourner) that he and his brother had better follow me side by side, and their two sons after them." How little Laura and Mrs.Peter Melcombe had ever thought about these old men, or supposed that they were frequently present to the mother's mind.

And yet now there seemed to be evidence that this was the case.
Two or three guarded questions asked the next day brought answers which showed her to be better acquainted with their circumstances than she commonly admitted.

She had always possessed a portrait in oils of her son Daniel.

It had been painted before he left home, and kept him always living as a beautiful fair-haired youth in her recollection.

She took pains to acquaint herself with his affairs, though she never opened her lips concerning them to those about her.
His first marriage had been disastrous.