“Well, I went of course. It was like most other respectable funerals. People looked solemn, there were flowers, and a preacher made the usual harrowing remarks, which set everybody weeping--everybody but me. I didn’t shed a tear, yet I loved Jess as well as any one there except her mother, I am sure. “I didn’t cry because I was so dazed I couldn’t. That was the queer part of it. I was dazed, because all the time the minister was speaking I saw Jess, her husband and little boy running around the coffin, laughing, kissing each other and throwing flowers in all directions. They took the flowers from the mass on top of the coffin, yet there were never any fewer there, though they threw them around by handfuls. “Once when the preacher said, ‘We shall see our sister no more until that great and dreadful day of the Lord, when all shall stand at the bar of judgment,’ Jess looked at me, laughed in a knowing way and threw a rose into my lap; but when I tried to pick it up it wasn’t there. Now what do you think of all that? _Am_ I crazy, or what was it?” “What do you think it was, Chrissalyn?” “I don’t know, and don’t dare to think too much about it lest I get upset over it.” “Did others see them, do you think?” “No; I am sure they did not, and that frightens me. If they were really there why didn’t the others see them? If they were not there why should I see them, unless something has gone wrong in my head? I am sure the others saw nothing, for I thought of that and watched them closely and could detect no astonishment in their faces.” “How did the dead people whom you saw look, Chrissalyn?” “Just like living people, clothes and all. Only I knew they were not living and had no business to be there, and couldn’t be there, and yet they were there.” “Have you ever seen anything of the kind before?” “Yes, several times; but I always drove the recollection of it out of my mind as soon as possible, because it seemed uncanny and creepy--and I ended by persuading myself that I had imagined it all.” “Did your friend Jess know you had seen such things?” “Come to think of it, she did. Once a good while ago she told me about some queer things of that kind she had seen. That’s the reason she was a spiritualist. Then I told her what I had seen.” (Here the Butterfly’s face lighted up). “Now that may be the reason she made me promise to be sure and go to her funeral. Perhaps she intended to make herself visible to me if she could. At least that view of it makes me feel easier. I prefer to believe I saw ghosts rather than to think my brain is going bad. It has been a long time since I saw anything of the kind. Each time I hope will be the last. But what do you think of it, Cartice? You believe I saw those dead people, don’t you?” “I think you saw just what you say you did; but I can’t explain it.”