airs in the dining-room, or writing
rapidly on a corner of the dining-table, the cloth pushed back. The
undertaker's assistants went about in their shirt-sleeves, working very
hard, and toward the middle of the afternoon the undertaker himself tied
the crepe to the bell handle.

Little by little a subdued excitement spread throughout the vicinity.
The neighbours appeared at their windows, looking down into the street,
watching everything that went on. It was a veritable event, a matter of
comment and interest for the whole block. Women found excuses to call on
each other, talking over what had happened, as they sat near their
parlour windows, shaking their heads at each other, peering out between
the lace curtains. The people on the cable-cars and the pedestrians
looked again and again at the crepe on the bell handle, and the
curtained windows, craning their necks backward when they had passed.
The neighbours' children collected in little groups on the sidewalk near
the house, looking and pointing, drawn close together, talking in low
tones. At last even a policeman appeared, walking deliberately, casting
the shadow of his huge stomach upon the fence that was about the vacant
lot. He frowned upon the children, ordering them away. But suddenly he
discovered an acquaintance, the driver of an express-wagon that had just
driven up with an enormous anchor of violets. He paused, exclaiming:

"Why, hello, Connors!"

"Why, hello, Mister Brodhead!"

Then a long conversation was begun, the policeman standing on the
curbstone, one foot resting upon the hub of a wheel, the expressman
leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, twirling his whip between his
hands. The expressman told some sort of story, pointing with his elbow
toward the house, but the other was incredulous, gravely shaking his
head, putting his chin in the air, and closing his eyes.

Inside the house itself there was a hushed and subdued bustling that
centred about a particular room. The undertaker's assistants and the
barber called in low voices through the halls for basins of water and
towels. There was a search for the Old Gentleman's best clothes and his
clean linen; bureau drawers were opened and shut, closet doors softly
closed. Relatives and friends called and departed or stayed to help. A
vague murmur arose, a mingled sound of whispers and light foot-steps,
the rustle of silks, and the noise of stifled weeping, and then at last
silence, night, solitude,