Notwithstanding her limited means, my mother had always managed to keep up a respectable appearance. Popular report had settled it that my grandmother was a woman of property and that my father had money; and the fact that my grandmother's long stocking had proved to be a myth was most completely discredited. We are supposed, therefore, to be well to do, and the scandal would have been great if my father had not received a respectable funeral. Public opinion called for it. My mother makes a great effort, and quite out of love, I am sure, and not at all in deference to public opinion, buries my father in a manner so respectable as to receive the entire approval of our neighbours. Public opinion called for mutes, and two mutes--one with a very long face and one with a very square face--are at our door, the objects of deep and attentive contemplation on the part of the sundry and several. Public opinion called for four black horses, and there they stand, champing their bits, with their mouths well soaped. Public opinion called for plumes, and there they wave, and bow, and bend, proud and graceful attendants at the shrine of death. Public opinion called for mock mourners, and they are ready to parody grief, with very large feet, ill-fitting black gloves, and red-rimmed eyes, which suggest the idea that their eyelids have been wept away by a long course of salaried affliction. Never all his life had my father been so surrounded by pomps and vanities; but public opinion has decided that on such solemn occasions grief is not grief unless it is lacquered, and that common decency would be outraged by following the dead to the grave with simple humility.