They did their best, let me say, to provide me with a Christian funeral, partly in accordance with some wishes I had expressed in writing, partly from the impulse of their own good sense. Not a curtain was drawn to darken the house of death. The blessed winter sunshine flowed in like the current of a broad stream, through low, wide windows. No ghastly “funeral flowers” filled the room; there was only a cluster of red pinks upon the coffin, and the air was sweet but not heavy with the carnation perfume that they knew I loved. My dead body and face they had covered with a deep red pall, just shaded off the black, as dark as darkness could be, and yet be redness. Not a bell was tolled. Not a tear--at least, I mean, by those nearest me--not a tear was shed. As the body was carried from the house, the voices of unseen singers lifted the German funeral chant:-- “Go forth! go on, with solemn song, Short is the way; the rest is long!” At the grave they sang:-- “Softly now the light of day,” since my mother had asked for one of the old hymns; and besides the usual Scriptural Burial Service, a friend, who was dear to me, read Mrs. Browning’s “Sleep.” It was all as I would have had it, and I looked on peacefully. If I could have spoken I would have said: “You have buried me cheerfully, as Christians ought, as a Christian ought to be.” I was greatly touched, I must admit, at the grief of some of the poor, plain people who followed my body on its final journey to the village church-yard. The woman who sent the magenta geranium refused to be comforted, and there were one or two young girls whom I had been so fortunate as to assist in difficulties, who, I think, did truly mourn. Some of my boys from the Grand Army were there, too,--some, I mean, whom it had been my privilege to care for in the hospitals in the old war days. They came in uniform, and held their caps before their eyes. It did please me to see them there. When the brief service at the grave was over, I would have gone home with my mother, feeling that she needed me more than ever; but as I turned to do so, I was approached by a spirit whose presence I had not observed. It proved to be my father. He detained me, explaining that I should remain where I was, feeling no fear, but making no protest, till the Will governing my next movement might be made known to me. So I bade my mother good-by, and Tom, as well as I could in the surprise and confusion, and watched them all as they went away. She, as she walked, seemed to those about her to be leaning only upon her son. But I beheld my father tenderly hastening close beside her, while he supported her with the arm which had never failed her yet, in all their loving lives. Therefore I could let her go, without distress.