ated blows from
her hard knuckles. She then tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield's bedroom
window with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was
obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open a mosquito netting
with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. This was a
considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic elderly lady, but this one
never grudged trouble when she wanted to find out anything.

When she discovered that her premonitions were correct, and that
old Mrs. Butterfield was indeed dead, her grief at losing a pleasant
acquaintance was largely mitigated by her sense of importance at being
first on the spot, and chosen by Providence to take command of the
situation. There were no relations in the village; there was no woman
neighbor within a mile: it was therefore her obvious Christian duty not
only to take charge of the remains, but to conduct such a funeral as the
remains would have wished for herself.

The fortunate Vice-President suddenly called upon by destiny to guide
the ship of state, the general who sees a possible Victoria Cross in
a hazardous engagement, can have a faint conception of aunt Hitty's
feeling on this momentous occasion. Funerals were the very breath of her
life. There was no ceremony, either of public or private import, that,
to her mind, approached a funeral in real satisfying interest. Yet,
with distinct talent in this direction, she had always been "cabined,
cribbed, confined" within hopeless limitations. She had assisted in a
secondary capacity at funerals in the families of other people, but she
would have reveled in personally conducted ones. The members of her own
family stubbornly refused to die, however, even the distant connections
living on and on to a ridiculous old age; and if they ever did die, by
reason of a falling roof, shipwreck, or conflagration, they generally
died in Texas or Iowa, or some remote State where aunt Hitty could not
follow the hearse in the first carriage. This blighted ambition was a
heart sorrow of so deep and sacred a character that she did not even
confess it to "Si," as her appendage of a husband was called.

Now at last her chance for planning a funeral had come. Mrs. Butterfield
had no kith or kin save her niece, Lyddy Ann, who lived in Andover,
or Lawrence, or Haverhill Massachusetts,--aunt Hitty couldn't remember
which, and hoped nobody else could. The niece would be sent for when
they found out where she lived; meanwhi