The weather was wonderful on Abrahama White's funeral day. The air
had at once the keen zest of winter and the languor of summer. One
moment one perceived warm breaths of softly undulating pines, the
next it was as if the wind blew over snow. The air at once stimulated
and soothed. One breathing it realized youth and an endless vista of
dreams ahead, and also the peace of age, and of work well done and
deserving the reward of rest. There was something in this air which
gave the inhaler the certainty of victory, the courage of battle and
of unassailable youth. Even old people, pausing to notice the
streamer of crape on Abrahama White's door, felt triumphant and
undaunted. It did not seem conceivable, upon such a day, that that
streamer would soon flaunt for them.

The streamer was rusty. It had served for many such occasions, and
suns and rains had damaged it. People said that Martin Barnes, the
undertaker, ought to buy some new crape. Martin was a very old man
himself, but he had no imagination for his own funeral. It seemed to
him grotesque and impossible that an undertaker should ever be in
need of his own ministrations. His solemn wagon stood before the door
of the great colonial house, and he and his son-in-law and his
daughter, who were his assistants, were engaged at their solemn tasks
within.

The daughter, Flora Barnes, was arraying the dead woman in her last
robe of state, while her father and brother-in-law waited in the
south room across the wide hall. When her task was performed she
entered the south room with a gentle pride evident in her thin,
florid face.