But all this saddened Henriette. For generations now her people had guarded the blood in their veins. Ignored by the whites, ignoring and scorning the blacks, they had kept themselves to themselves. But now there was change all about them. Something was in the air.... In her black spreading skirts, with her black kerchief about her head, Henriette sat on the gallery and watched the gravelled road that was straight and white and went on and on, taking the young folks with it.... People didn’t die, either, like they used to do, properly in their beds, with time to receive the sacrament and be shrived for their sins. They died just any and everywhere, bumped off by trains or the automobiles that ploughed by on the highway. No wonder the buryings were often hurried, unworthy affairs, without bell or book; to say nothing of singing woman! Henriette and her crony, fat old Josephine Remon, were the only singing women left on Isle Brevelle. Time was when a singing woman was as necessary as a priest, when no one who was anything could be buried without a professional mourner. In those days Henriette and Josephine were looked up to and respected: the place of honour at table, the best seat by the fireside, the most desirable pew in the church. Finally, instead of being sought after, a wailing woman had to offer her services. Nowadays people seemed to have lost the fear, the dignity of death. It was the same way with midwifery. Young women nowadays engaged trained nurses, or went to town to the hospitals to have their babies. Nowadays people didn’t care _how_ they died or were born. They just came in and went out of the world, any old way.... All this troubled Henriette, and she sat in her corner and mumbled and grumbled to God about it, “Look like nothing ain’t right, not what it used to be....” It had been nearly ten years now since Henriette had wailed for a funeral. Josephine had had the last one, when old Madame Rivet died, six years ago. That made ninety-eight for Josephine and ninety-nine for herself. She was one funeral ahead. How proud she was of her record! She, Henriette, had sung for more buryings than any singing woman in the parish. Of course, old Josephine ran her a mighty close second. Henriette kept an account of her own and Josephine’s funerals, in a little black memorandum book locked up in her armoire. On one page was her own name, Henriette; and underneath it ninety-nine crosses in neat little rows of five. On the opposite page was Josephine’s name, and beneath it ninety-eight crosses, in neat little rows of five. Well, they had served Death long and faithfully, she and Josephine; where Death had gone they had followed.... Time was, when, as a special treat, Henriette would take out her funeral book and name the crosses: “This one was Marie Lombard, and this one Celeste, her daughter. Here was Henri, what died the time the cholera come, in 1860.”