Considering that Philip Lucas's aunt who died early in April was no less than eighty-three years old and had spent the last seven of them bedridden in a private lunatic asylum it had been generally and perhaps reasonably hoped among his friends and those of his wife that the bereavement would not be regarded by either of them as an intolerable tragedy. Mrs. Quantock in fact who like everybody else at Riseholme had sent a neat little note of condolence to Mrs. Lucas had without using the actual words "happy release" certainly implied it or its close equivalent.