't expect."

"No, I don't think they is."

"Ike don't seem to please people. It's queer, too. He tries awful hard."

The voice of the preacher within, raised to a wild shout, interrupted
them.

"The Elder's gettin' warmed up," said one of the story-tellers, pausing
in his talk. "And so I told Bill if he wanted the cord-wood--"

The sun shone warmer, and the chickens _caw-cawed_ feebly. The colts
whinnied, and a couple of dogs rolled and tumbled in wild frolic, while
the voice of the preacher sounded dolefully or in humming monotone.

Meanwhile, in the house, in the best room and in the best seats near the
coffin, the women, in their black, worn dresses, with wrinkled, sallow
faces and gnarled hands, sat shivering. Theirs was to be the luxury of
the ceremony.

The carpet was damp and muddy, the house was chill, and the damp wind
filled them all with ague; but they had so much to see and talk about,
that time passed rapidly. Each one entering was studied critically to
see whether dress and deportment were proper to the occasion or not, and
if one of the girls smiled a little as she entered, some one was sure to
whisper:--

"Heartless thing, how _can_ she?"

There were a few young men, only enough to help out on the singing, and
they remained mainly in the kitchen where they were seen occasionally in
anxious consultation with Deacon Williams.

The girls looked serious, but a little sly, as if they could smile if
the boys looked their way or if one of the old women should cough her
store teeth out.

Upstairs the family were seated in solemn silence, the two nieces, Emma
and Sarah, and Emma's husband, Harkey, and Sarah's children--deceased
Williams had no wife. These people sat in stony immobility, except when
Harkey looked at his watch, and said:--

"Seem slow gitten here."

Occasionally women came up the stairway and flung themselves upon the
necks of the mourning nieces, who submitted to it without apparent
disgust or astonishment, and sank back into the same icy calm after
their visitors had "straightened their things," and retired to the
reserved seats below.

Deacon Williams, small, quick, with sunny blue-gray eyes belying the
gloomy curve of his mouth, was everywhere; arranging for bearers,
selecting hymns, conferring with the family, keeping abstracted old
women off the seats reserved for the mourners, and maintaining an
anxious lookout for the minister.

The Deacon was a distant relative of the d