minister lifted his head and began the burial service.
He, too, was feeling the heavy hand of time, and his voice, so long
charged with the burden of emotion, emotion that had had to be
summoned on short notice, seemed on the point of breaking. He was old
and broken himself, wearied with futility, with his head raised,
half-closed eyes lifted ceiling-ward, his fluttering draperies now
billowy, now closely enwrapping his gaunt frame in the little breeze
that came in from the hall. There was not much of comfort to be
gained, not much of hope. Looking out of the corner of his eyes, Joe
could get a glimpse of a wall of white, blank, expressionless faces
and the silent waving of countless palm-leaf fans. Directly in front
of him was the long, narrow back of Mr. Fawcette, and beside the
latter, Aunt Loraine, sitting very straight and very stiff, her new
black veil opaquely shielding from curious eyes the delicacy of her
grief. The ruching was there, but the bangles had been laid aside. On
went that quavering, faltering voice:

"All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of
men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of
birds."

Of just what kind had been Uncle Buzz, he found himself wondering. A
weaker kind, or at least, a kind ill suited to the world it had been
thrown in.

"Now I say, brethren," the voice went on, "that flesh and blood cannot
inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit
incorruption."

What, thought Joe, were the chances of all those white, fleshy faces
staring there, immovable? The crowd in the back parlour--a single,
silent, pasty-faced, fan-waving convention, over which the fat, pasty
white hand of death was significantly hovering, and about which the
odour of jasmine was pressing. He felt suddenly stifled, suffocated.
He wanted to get up and run away, out of doors, anywhere. The only
thing that seemed to escape the stifling was his Uncle Buzz, lying
there quietly, in acceptance. And then he knew that another link had
been broken, a link that held him to the past. There was a little less
friendliness, a little less cheer, a little less understandableness--he
was conscious of it--a little less need of him.

The service came to an end and a small fraction of the assembly filed
out to the family burying ground on the hill behind the house. Here
came a repetition of what had been enacted in the back parlour, only
there was the distraction of the wi