for more common wear, trimmed heavy with crape, one of which she ordered for sure the next week, for she said, "she couldn't stir out of the house in any other color but black."

   I knew jest how dear crape wuz, and I tackled her on the subject, and sez I—

   "Do you know, S. Annie, these dresses of your'n will cost a sight?"

   "Cost?" sez she, a-bustin' out a-cryin'. "What do I care about cost? I will do everything I can to respect his memory. I do it in remembrance of him."

   Sez I, gently, "S. Annie, you wouldn't forget him if you wuz dressed in white. And as for respect, such a life as his, from all I hear of it, don't need crape to throw respect on it; it commands respect, and gets it from everybody."

   "But," sez Cephas, "it would look dretful odd to the neighbors if she didn't dress in black." Sez he in a skairful tone, and in his intense way—

   "I would ruther resk my life than to have her fail in duty in this way; it would make talk. And." sez he, "what is life worth when folks talk?" I turned around the crazed block and tackled it in a new place (more luny than ever it seemed to me), and sez I, mekanickly—

   "It is pretty hard work to keep folks from talkin'; to keep 'em from sayin' somethin'."

   But I see from their looks it wouldn't do to say anything more, so I had to set still and see it go on.

   At that time of year flowers wuz dretful high, but S. Annie and Cephas had made up their minds that they must have several flower-pieces from the city nighest to Loontown.

   One wuz a-goin' to be a gate ajar, and one wuz to be a gate wide open, and one wuz to be a big book. Cephas asked what book I thought would be preferable to represent. And I mentioned the Bible.

   But Cephas sez, "No, he didn't think he would have a Bible; he didn't think it would be appropriate, seein' the deceased wuz a lawyer." He said "he hadn't quite made up his mind what book to have. But anyway it wuz to be in flowers—beautiful flowers." Another piece wuz to be his name in white flowers on a purple background of pansies. His name wuz Wellington Napoleon Bonaparte Hardiman. And I sez to Cephas—"To save expense, you will probable have the moneygram W.N.B.H.?"

   "Oh, no," sez he.

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