What they had got hold of, as Joanna now saw, was one of the monumental mason’s catalogues from the office downstairs. All the slips of paper were tombstones. There were plain marble crosses and wormy Celtic ones; there were broken pillars, massive sarcophagi, slabs and kerbs; there were mourning angels, shattered vases and draped urns. The children had cut them out, growing less and less neat as they had progressed helter-skelter through the catalogue, and had filled each in with a name they knew.

Joanna studied one tombstone after another.

RODDY DIED, she read. Then EDVINA DIED, OLLIE DIED, MOTHER DIED, FATHER DIED. (All were in Roddie’s bold but erratic printing, Ollie being a backward scholar). And beside what she took to be an attempt at her own name – misees rest pony died, stuck by the side of the fireplace upon a very imposing piece of scrollworked sculpture, there was pinned up one of the undertaker’s printed order forms. Here Roddy, unable to subdue his caligraphy to the spaces left blank for customers, had answered several questions at once with a single yes or no, or by some secret hieroglyph of his own.

Thus, opposite – “Measurement of Body,” – he had put X, opposite –

“Shell Cov’d		– he had put YES.
Lead Coffin
Mahogany Coffin
Outside Casket”

opposite –

“Is Hand Bier required of us?		– he had put no.
Is our Hearse to go through by rail?
Are Bearers to go through by rail?
Valuations for probate?
Monumental Masonry?
Terms of payment?”

And wherever he had felt doubtful, or had been presented with a nice large space, he had firmly planted his own name – roddy … roddy … roddy.

Joanna shuddered. She told herself it was absurd to feel anything but amusement, yet she could not help that shudder. For the very reason perhaps that she could well enter into the children’s excitement at having all by themselves discovered so novel a game, she was quite overcome; and for a few moments she dared not turn round from her inspection of the book-case, lest her unreasoned dread should be communicated to Ollie who stood just behind. Perfectly she knew how Ollie was standing there, twisting the corner of her pinafore between her fingers, awaiting the verdict. Roddy, she need not trouble about. Roddy was shielded impenetrably by the wall of the citadel in which he dwelt apart, exempt. Nothing from the outside world could come near him, much less wound him. But Ollie! From the first, Joanna had understood in little Ollie something of her own passionate wistfulness of desire towards the world. Ollie wanted the world. And she wanted it perfect, ever so perfect in gaiety and loveliness. So Ollie could not bear one hint of reproach or unhappiness.

At last, feeling she was mistress again of her countenance, Joanna turned, and immediately she had to meet the little girl’s look of apprehension.