And when she
went home at night (though it was very late, as a sort of
retribution for her morning's negligence), she set to work at once,
and was so busy and so glad over her task, that she had, every now
and then, to check herself in singing merry ditties, which she felt
little accorded with the sewing on which she was engaged.
So when the funeral day came, Mrs. Davenport was neatly arrayed in
black, a satisfaction to her poor heart in the midst of her sorrow.
Barton and Wilson both accompanied her, as she led her two elder
boys, and followed the coffin. It was a simple walking funeral,
with nothing to grate on the feelings of any; far more in accordance
with its purpose, to my mind, than the gorgeous hearses, and nodding
plumes, which form the grotesque funeral pomp of respectable people.
There was no "rattling the bones over the stones," of the pauper's
funeral. Decently and quietly was he followed to the grave by one
determined to endure her woe meekly for his sake. The only mark of
pauperism attendant on the burial concerned the living and joyous,
far more than the dead, or the sorrowful.
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