elief to Bibbs when George announced that an automobile
was waiting to convey the ancient man and his grandson to their train.
They were the last to leave, and when they had gone Bibbs went sighing
to his own room.

He stretched himself wearily upon the bed, but presently rose, went to
the window, and looked for a long time at the darkened house where
Mary Vertrees lived. Then he opened his trunk, took therefrom a small
note-book half filled with fragmentary scribblings, and began to write:

Laughter after a funeral. In this reaction people will laugh at
anything and at nothing. The band plays a dirge on the way to the
cemetery, but when it turns back, and the mourning carriages are
out of hearing, it strikes up, "Darktown is Out To-night." That
is natural--but there are women whose laughter is like the whirring
of whips. Why is it that certain kinds of laughter seem to spoil
something hidden away from the laughers? If they do not know of
it, and have never seen it, how can their laughter hurt it? Yet it
does. Beauty is not out of place among grave-stones. It is not
out of place anywhere. But a woman who has been betrothed to a
man would not look beautiful at his funeral. A woman might look
beautiful, though, at the funeral of a man whom she had known and
liked. And in that case, too, she would probably not want to talk
if she drove home from the cemetery with his brother: nor would
she want the brother to talk. Silence is usually either stupid or
timid. But for a man who stammers if he tries to talk fast, and
drawls so slowly, when he doesn't stammer, that nobody has time to
listen to him, silence is advisable. Nevertheless, too much silence
is open to suspicion. It may be reticence, or it may be a vacuum.
It may be dignity, or it may be false teeth.

Sometimes an imperceptible odor will become perceptible in a small
inclosure, such as a closed carriage. The ghost of gasoline rising
from a lady's glove might be sweeter to the man riding beside her
than all the scents of Arcady in spring. It depends on the lady--
but there ARE! Three miles may be three hundred miles, or it may
be three feet. When it is three feet you have not time to say a
great deal before you reach the end of it. Still, it may be that
one should begin to speak.

No one could help wishing to stay in a world that holds some of
the people that are in this world. There a