a life of
eternal rest (the allurement of all hard-working humanity).

Slowly the snuffling and sobbing ceased, the handkerchiefs took longer
and longer intervals of rest, and when in conclusion the preacher said,
"Let us pray," the old men looked at each other with fervent
satisfaction. "It's been a blessed time--a blessed time!"

The pretty girl who sang the soprano looked very interesting with her
wet eyelashes, the tears stopped halfway in their course down her
rounded cheek. The closing hymn promised endless peace and rest, but was
voiced in the same tragic and hopeless music with which the service
opened.

Deacon Williams came out to say, "All parties desiring to view the
_remains_, will now have an opportunity." He had the hospitable tone of
a host inviting his guests in to dinner.

Viewing the remains was considered a religious duty, and the men from
outside, and even the boys from behind the smoke-house, felt constrained
to come in and pass in shuddering horror before the still face whose
breath did not dim the glass above it. Most of them hurried by the box
with only a swift side glance down at the strange thing within.

Then the bearers lifted the coffin and slipped it into the
platform-spring wagon, which was backed up to the door. The other teams
loaded up, and the procession moved off, down the perilously muddy road
toward the village burying-ground.

In this way was John Williams, a hard-working, honorable Welshman,
buried. His death furnished forth a sombre, dramatic entertainment such
as he himself had ceremoniously attended many times. The funeral
trotters whom he had seen at every funeral in the valley were now in at
his death, and would be at each other's death, until the black and
yellow earth claimed them all.

A ceremony almost as interesting to the gossips as the burial was the
reading of the will, to which only the family were invited. After the
return of Emma, her husband, and Sarah from the cemetery, Deacon
Williams read the dead man's bequests, seated in the best room, which
was still littered with chairs and damp with mud.

The will was simple and not a surprise to any one. It gave equal
division of all the property to the nieces.

"Well, now, when'll we have the settlement?" asked the Deacon.

"Just's you say, Deacon," said Emma, meekly.

"Suit yourself," said Harkey; "only it 'ad better come soon. Sooner the
better--seedin's coming on."

"Well, to-morrow is Friday, why not S