he time of the death; and he was further
bound to certify that the signs of decomposition had actually begun to
show themselves. Have these multiplied precautions, patiently applied in
many German cities, through a long lapse of years, ever yet detected a
case in which Death has failed to complete its unintelligible work? Let
the answer be found in the cells of the dead. Pass, with the mourners,
through the iron gates--hear and see!

On the evening of the third, as the time approached for the arrival of
the hearse, the melancholy stillness in the house was only broken by Mr.
Keller's servants, below-stairs. Collecting together in one room, they
talked confidentially, in low voices. An instinctive horror of silence,
in moments of domestic distress, is, in all civilized nations, one of the
marked characteristics of their class.

"In ten minutes," said Joseph, "the men from the cemetery will be here to
take her away. It will be no easy matter to carry her downstairs on the
couch."

"Why is she not put in her coffin, like other dead people?" the housemaid
asked.

"Because the crazy creature she brought with her from London is allowed
to have his own way in the house," Joseph answered irritably. "If I had
been brought to the door drunk last night, I should have been sent away
this morning. If I had been mad enough to screech out, 'She isn't dead;
not one of you shall put her in a coffin!'--I should have richly deserved
a place in the town asylum, and I should have got my deserts. Nothing of
the sort for Master Jack. Mr. Keller only tells him to be quiet, and
looks distressed. The doctor takes him away, and speaks to him in another
room--and actually comes back converted to Jack's opinion!"

"You don't mean to tell us," exclaimed the cook, "that the doctor said
she wasn't dead?"

"Of course not. It was he who first found out that she _was_ dead--I only
mean that he let Jack have his own way. He asked me for a foot rule, and
he measured the little couch in the bedroom. 'It's no longer than the
coffin' (he says); 'and I see no objection to the body being laid on it,
till the time comes for the burial.' Those were his own words; and when
the nurse objected to it, what do you think he said?--'Hold your tongue!
A couch is a pleasanter thing all the world over than a coffin.'"

"Blasphemous!" said the cook--"that's what I call it."

"Ah, well, well!" the housemaid remarked, "couch or coffin, she looks
beautiful, poor s