really countrified seemed somehow to excuse the dispersion of her remains — though what could have put cremation into herhead they could not think! The usual invitations, however, had been issued, and Soames had gone down and young Nicholas, andthe Will had been quite satisfactory so far as it went, for she had only had a life interest; and everything had gone quitesmoothly to the children in equal shares.

The third reason why Susan’s burial made little stir was the most expansive of all. It was summed up daringly byEuphemia, the pale, the thin: “Well, I think people have a right to their own bodies, even when they’re dead.” Coming from adaughter of Nicholas, a Liberal of the old school and most tyrannical, it was a startling remark — showing in a flash what alot of water had run under bridges since the death of Aunt Ann in ‘86, just when the proprietorship of Soames over hiswife’s body was acquiring the uncertainty which had led to such disaster. Euphemia, of course, spoke like a child, and hadno experience; for though well over thirty by now, her name was still Forsyte. But, making all allowances, her remark didundoubtedly show expansion of the principle of liberty, decentralisation and shift in the central point of possession fromothers to oneself. When Nicholas heard his daughter’s remark from Aunt Hester he had rapped out: “Wives and daughters!There’s no end to their liberty in these days. I knew that ‘Jackson’ case would lead to things — lugging in Habeas Corpuslike that!” He had, of course, never really forgiven the Married Woman’s Property Act, which would so have interfered withhim if he had not mercifully married before it was passed. But, in truth, there was no denying the revolt among the youngerForsytes against being owned by others; that, as it were, Colonial disposition to own oneself, which is the paradoxicalforerunner of Imperialism, was making progress all the time. They were all now married, except George, confirmed to the Turf