Death as a rule is either made unduly awful, or is a time of the most extravagant expenditure. The immense quantities of florists’ wreaths sent nowadays have brought into disrepute one of the most charming ideas possible, and the money once devoted to black plumes and undertaker’s millinery of all kinds, to extravagant mourning and absurd woe, is now squandered equally extravagantly and absurdly on wreaths, which cost from 15_s._ to 30_s._ each, and which are simply thrown into the earth to perish there untimely. Not for one moment would I deprecate the use of flowers entirely, but let them be arranged by people who loved me, and really bound them together because they knew I loved them. I would rather spend money, or have money spent, on some useful memorial than on a perishable wreath; and were I to die to-morrow I should say, Give me as simple, as cheap a funeral as you can, and give the money to my pet charity. It could be done in my name, and would be a practical remembrance of me, and a far more useful one than hundreds of wreaths. Why, I once saw a funeral in mid-winter where there were over 300 wreaths. This would have almost built a ward in the Hospital for Sick Children; it would certainly have helped the good Sisters at Kilburn, and have done great good to the children there, who had always been loved by her whose funeral it was. And in the same way would I deprecate a ‘handsome’ coffin and elaborate headstone; neither can do any good to the dead, and the memory of those we have loved can be perpetuated a thousand times longer should we content ourselves with the simplest oak coffin we can get and the plain cross, which will last as long as anyone could wish it to, while the money saved can be given elsewhere. Everyone has some pet scheme that could be benefited by his or her death; no one but the undertaker and florist is benefited now. Another reason why we should not encourage the sending of an immense quantity of flowers from our friends is, that there is something almost ghastly about the false air of festivity given by the constant receipt and opening of the parcels and boxes in which they are sent; in the list of names which, must be written out, in order that all who sent may be thanked or their names mentioned in the local paper; and in the smothered remarks of the servants and children as they look at the beauties, and compare the present one with the last one laid on the coffin in the room which is so familiar and yet has become so fearfully and wonderfully strange.