. Otherwise refreshments are never offered--except to those of the
family, of course, who are staying in the house.

=HOUSE RESTORED TO ORDER=

While the funeral cortege is still at the cemetery, some one who is in
charge at home must see that the mourning emblem is taken off the bell,
that the windows are opened, the house aired from the excessive odor of
flowers, and the blinds pulled up. Any furniture that has been displaced
should be put back where it belongs, and unless the day is too hot a fire
should be lighted in the library or principal bedroom to make a little
more cheerful the sad home-coming of the family. It is also well to
prepare a little hot tea or broth, and it should be brought them upon
their return without their being asked if they would care for it. Those
who are in great distress want no food, but if it is handed to them, they
will mechanically take it, and something warm to start digestion and
stimulate impaired circulation is what they most need.

=MOURNING=

A generation or two ago the regulations for mourning were definitely
prescribed, definite periods according to the precise degree of
relationship of the mourner. One's real feelings, whether of grief or
comparative indifference, had nothing to do with the outward manifestation
one was obliged, in decency, to show. The tendency to-day is toward
sincerity. People do not put on black for aunts, uncles and cousins unless
there is a deep tie of affection as well as of blood.

Many persons to-day do not believe in going into mourning at all. There
are some who believe, as do the races of the East, that great love should
be expressed in rejoicing in the re-birth of a beloved spirit instead of
selfishly mourning their own earthly loss. But many who object to
manifestations of grief, find themselves impelled to wear mourning when
their sorrow comes and the number of those who do not put on black is
still comparatively small.

=PROTECTION OF MOURNING=

If you see acquaintances of yours in deepest mourning, it does not occur
to you to go up to them and babble trivial topics or ask them to a dance
or dinner. If you pass close to them, irresistible sympathy compels you
merely to stop and press their hand and pass on. A widow, or mother, in
the newness of her long veil, has her hard path made as little difficult
as possible by everyone with whom she comes in contact, no matter on what
errand she may be bent. A clerk in a store will try to wai