a skirt, which showed a brown stain where she had allowed
it to drag in a forgetful moment. Only Archie was absent, but that was
merely because he had driven over to bring one of the Halloween girls in
Abel's gig. Sarah had heard him whistling in the stable at daybreak,
and looking out of the window a little later she had seen him oiling the
wheels of the vehicle. It had been decided at supper the evening before
that the family as a unit should pay its respects to Reuben. From
Sarah, comforting herself behind her widow's weeds with the doctrine of
original sin, to Archie, eager to give his sweetheart a drive, one and
all had been moved by a genuine impulse to dignify as far as lay
in their power the ceremonial of decay. Even Abner, the silent, had
remarked that he'd "never heard a word said against Reuben Merryweather
in his life." And now at the end of that life the neighbours had
gathered amid the ridges of green graves in the churchyard to bear
witness to the removal of a good man from a place in which he had been
honoured.

During the service Abel kept his eyes on Molly, who came leaning
on Gay's arm, and wearing what appeared to him a stifling amount of
fashionable mourning. He was too ignorant in such matters to discern
that the fashion was one of an earlier date, or that the mourning had
been hastily gathered from cedar chests by Kesiah. The impression he
seized and carried away was one of elegance and remoteness; and the
little lonely figure in the midst of the green ridges bore no relation
in his mind to the girl in the red jacket, who had responded so ardently
to his kiss. The sunlight falling in flecks through the network of
locust boughs deepened the sense of unreality with which he watched her.

"It's a good service as such ready-made things go," observed Sarah as
they went homeward, "but it seems to me that a man as upright as Reuben
was is entitled to a sermon bein' preached about him when he's laid in
his grave. What's the difference between the good man and the bad, if
you're goin' to say the same words over the one and the other? I ain't
a friend to flattery, but it can't hurt a man to have a few compliments
paid him in the churchyard, and when all's said an' done, 'lookin' for
the general Resurrection' can't be construed into a personal compliment
to Reuben."

"When a man has been as pious as that he hasn't any use for compliments,
livin' or dead," rejoined Abner.

"Well, I ain't contendin'," repl