Now no one ever thought of Henriette’s funeral book. Six years, since Madame Rivet died, it had lain in her armoire. Sometimes she wondered sadly if she would ever wail again. For on Isle Brevelle there was but one person left who, when he died, would want a wailing woman. This person was Toni Philbert, the only soul on Isle Brevelle older than Henriette. Toni and Henriette and Josephine had been young folks together. Now it had got to be a sort of game between the two women as to who would get Toni when Toni died. “If I get Toni,” Henriette would say, “me, I’ll have two more crosses than you. I’ll have a hundred.” And Josephine, sitting fat in her chair, would chuckle, “_Mais non_, and if I get him, we’ll be even, Etta, my friend.” Toni himself, an old, old man, sans teeth, sans everything, was pleased with the fuss they made over him. Sometimes he would joke with them when he met them at church. “Well, well, old uns. I’m here yet. Hee! Hee! I’ll outlive both you girls. Just wait--me, I show you!” * * * * * The days on Isle Brevelle were long and filled with the drowsy chatter of ducks and fat red hens. Henriette’s prayers for those in purgatory took up part of the time. But a person can’t pray forever! Nothing to do but sit and think of the past, and of death and dying. Henriette had always, even when a child, known something lovely and secret about death. What it was she could not have told; but her knowledge made her a good wailing woman. She minded the time, long ago, when the husband of Rose, Toni’s daughter, died and left Rose a widow. Such a pretty slip of a thing and so white in her sorrow! Henriette had, of course, done her duty to the dead; she had wailed and sung and beat the earth: “_Under a tree by the river I saw them digging a young grave. Stricken one, desired of Heaven, your eyes that will not look at me--what do they see? How long before I can go to you, as I used to go?... down by the water where the reeds are singing...._” But after the funeral (Mother forgive her!), she had gone back to comfort Rose, and unsay all she had said. “Look, Rose, honey, don’t take on so. A girl as fresh and sweet as you! Look, he is happy. And the world is full of lovers....” At Rose’s door grew the lily called “widow’s tear”--“widow’s tear” because the drop of dew in its heart dries so quickly when the broad, warm sun comes out.... Well, who should know more about death than she, Henriette ... she who had buried three husbands?