"I've come right over," said she, in a soft voice; "but it ain't true what Henry said, is it?" "What ain't true?" asked Ann, grimly. "It ain't true you're goin' to have a funeral?" Tears welled up afresh in Belinda's blue eyes, and flowed slowly down her delicate cheeks, but not a muscle of her face changed, and she smiled still. "Why can't I have a funeral?" "Why, Ann, how can you have a funeral, when there ain't--when they 'ain't found him?" "I'd like to know why I can't!" Belinda's blue, weeping eyes surveyed her with the helpless bewilderment of a baby. "Why, Ann," she gasped, "there won't be any--remains!" "What of that? I guess I know it." "There won't be nothin' for anybody to go round an' look at; there won't be any coffin--Ann, you ain't goin' to have any coffin when he ain't found, be you?" "Be you a fool, Belindy Lamb?" said Ann. A hard sniff came from Paulina Maria. "Well, I didn't s'pose you was," said Belinda, with meek abashedness. "Of course I knew you wasn't--I only asked; but I don't see how you can have a funeral no way, Ann. There won't be any coffin, nor any hearse, nor any procession, nor--" "There'll be mourners," broke in Ann. "They're what makes a funeral," said Paulina Maria, putting on an apron she had brought. "Folks that's had funerals knows." She cast an austere glance at Belinda Lamb, who colored to the roots of her fair curls, and was conscious of a guilty lack of funeral experience, while Paulina Maria had lost seven children, who all died in infancy. Poor Belinda seemed to see the other woman's sternly melancholy face in a halo of little coffins and funeral wreaths. "I know you've had a good deal more to contend with than I have," she faltered. "I 'ain't never lost anybody till poor--Abel." She broke into gentle weeping, but Paulina Maria thrust a broom relentlessly into her hand. "Here," said she, "take this broom an' sweep, an' it might as well be done to-night as any time. Of course you 'ain't got your spring cleanin' done, none of it, Ann?" "No," replied Mrs. Edwards; "I was goin' to begin next week." "Well," said Paulina Maria, "if this house has got to be all cleaned, an' cookin' done, in time for the funeral, somebody's got to work. I s'pose you expect some out-of-town folks, Ann?" "I dare say some 'll come from the West Corners. I thought I wouldn't try to get word to Westbrook, it's so far; but mebbe I'd send to Granby--there's some there that might come." "Well," said Paulina Maria, "I shouldn't be surprised if as many as a dozen came, an' supper 'll have to be got for 'em. What are you goin' to do about black, Ann?" "I thought mebbe I could borrow a black bonnet an' a veil. I guess my black bombazine dress will do to wear."