Visitors to Paris will remember how often they have seen a coffin exhibited in the doorway of a house, elaborately covered with flowers, having at its head a crucifix, and many lights surrounding it, everybody as they passed saluting it--the men by taking off their hats, and the women by making the sign of the cross, often using for this purpose holy water offered to them on a brush by an acolyte. Now, the Greeks used blessed water when they exposed their dead in front of their dwellings; possibly the French custom is derived from the Grecian. The funeral in Greece took place three days after the exhibition of the remains, and usually occurred before sunrise, so as to avoid ostentation. Many women surrounded the bier, weeping and howling, and not a few, being professionals, were paid for their trouble. The corpse was placed on a chariot, in a coffin made of cypress wood. The male relatives walked behind, those who were of close kinship having their heads shaved. They usually cast down their eyes, and were invariably dressed in black. A choir of musicians came next, singing doleful tunes. The procession, as a rule, had not far to go, for the body of a wealthy person was usually buried in his garden--if his city house did not possess one, in that of his villa residence. [Illustration: FIG. 6.--_A Greek Tomb: the Monument of Themistocles, Athens._] The Greeks, it will thus be seen, buried their dead, and did not cremate them as did the Romans; but in the latter years of the Republic both forms of disposing of the body were common. After the burial, libations of wine were poured over the grave, and all objects of clothing which had belonged to the deceased were solemnly burnt. The ninth and fourteenth days after the funeral, the parents, dressed in white, visited the grave, and a ceremony was gone through for the repose of the soul. The anniversary of the death was also observed, and the Greeks, moreover, had a general commemoration of the dead in the month of March. And here let us make a digression to see how very closely the Greeks must have influenced the early Christians, and consequently their more immediate descendants, the Roman Catholics, in the matter of religious ceremonies; for it is usual among Catholics to hear a Mass for the Dead a week after the death, and also another on the anniversary. The universal feast of the dead is observed by them, however, not in the month of March, but in that of November. People who have lived in Paris will know how very largely these funereal ceremonies enter into the manners and customs of that gay city, so that it is not unfrequent for foreign residents to observe that their time is passed in perpetually going to funerals; for, if you have a large acquaintance, you are sure to receive at least twenty or thirty invitations to funerals and funereal commemorations in the course of the year. Of course, everybody will remember how on the Continent