always felt that you shet yourselves up too much and
mourned too deep."

"Wall," sez Lateza Alzina, "my folks always brung me up to think that it
would be apt to make talk if folks went out any while they wuz in
black."

"Wall," sez I, "I always felt that folks had better set down and
calculate which would be the most agreeable to 'em, to shet themselves
up and lose their health, and die, or to let folks talk.

"And then act on them thoughts, and do as they want to with fear and
tremblin'.

"And," sez I, "folks would talk whilst you wuz dyin', anyway; you can't
keep folks from talkin'." Sez I, "Like as not they'd say it wuz a guilty
conscience that made you droop round and stay to home so."

"Wall," sez Lateza Alzina, "I wuz brought up to think that it showed so
much respect to them that wuz gone to stay to home in black."

"Wall," sez I, "if the ones that wuz gone loved you, they would want you
to git all the consolation you could whilst you wuz parted. Jest as a
mother lets her child have some picture-books to comfort it while she
leaves it a spell.

"And if you loved them," sez I, "their memory would go out-doors with
you, and go back into the house with you. You would see the beloved
face lookin' down at you from every mountain you would climb, and the
shadder of their form would seem to appear in the mist of every valley.
Every sunset would gleam with the smilin' light of their eyes, and every
sunrise would begen to you, tellin' you that one more night had gone,
and you wuz so much nearer to the Eternal Reunion.

"Folks don't have to stay indoors to remember, Lateza. I have remembered
folks out-doors, it seems to me, more than I ever did in the house.

"And the voice you loved would seem to be a-tellin' you, 'Keep well,
beloved, so you can do some of my day's work I had to lay down, as well
as your own, and the meetin' will be all the gladder and more joyous.'

"And as for puttin' on black, the dear remembered voice seems to be
a-sayin' to me, 'Don't put on the symbol of sorrow for one who has found
the very secret of happiness, who has left the dark shadders and has
gone into the great brightness. Don't carry the idee to the world that
you have lost me, for I am nearer to you than I ever could have been on
earth, for the clay has only fell off from my soul, leavin' the barrier
but thin indeed between us now.

"'Don't act as if you wuz mournin' for me, dear heart. Let the world
see your thought, see t