Aunt Hitty was the most important person in the village on these
occasions. It was she who assisted in the last solemn preparations and
took the last solemn stitches; and when all was done, and she hung her
little reticule on her arm, and started to walk from the house of
bereavement to her own home (where "Si" was anxiously awaiting his
nightly draught of gossip), no royal herald could have been looked for
with greater interest or greeted with greater cordiality. All the
housewives that lived on the direct road were on their doorsteps, so as
not to lose a moment, and all that lived off the road had seen her from
the upstairs windows, and were at the gate to waylay her as she passed.
At such a moment Aunt Hitty's bosom swelled with honest pride, and she
humbly thanked her Maker that she had been bred to the use of scissors
and needle.

Two days of this intoxicating popularity had just passed; the funeral
was over, and she ran in to the White Farm on her way home, to carry a
message, and to see with her own eyes how Samantha Ann Ripley was
comporting herself.

"You didn't git out to the fun'ral, did ye, Samanthy?" she asked, as she
seated herself cosily by the kitchen window.

"No, I didn't. I never could see the propriety o' goin' to see folks
dead that you never went to see alive."

"How you talk! That's one way o' puttin' it! Well, everybody was lookin'
for you, and you missed a very pleasant fun'ral. David 'n' I arranged
everything as neat as wax, and it all went off like clock-work, if I do
say so as shouldn't. Mis' Pettigrove made a beautiful remains."