Before Ottawa was stirring, the city was already being filled with the gathering crowd. To the ordinary passenger accommodation of the railways many special trains had been added to bring visitors from other cities and distant provinces. While the gathering crowd was pouring in from the stations, the streets approaching the city were filled with people coming in all manner of vehicles, and even with thousands coming afoot. By the time the Capital was awake it was already in the possession of what was perhaps the greatest crowd it has ever known. As the day was mild—a grey day, frosty but kindly, with snow under foot and the sun shining through a thick haze—the visitors were able to stand about in the streets without discomfort. The route of the funeral procession having been announced, every available point of observation was crowded long before the proceedings began. All was orderly, as was to be expected, but the prevailing air was one of cheerfulness. Their hero had lived to the fullness of time, and they had come to show their respect, rather than to mourn. Everywhere groups were engaged in low-voiced conversation, and at times even hushed laughter might be heard. This would be when someone told a treasured story about the dead Chieftain. But as all the stories told illustrated the other world and other time courtliness of manner, which often made him appear in startling contrast with crude surroundings, there was no disrespect in telling or appreciating them at such a time. Those who told them and those who heard them only loved him the more for graces they admired but could not emulate. Those who had been favored by the Government with invitations to the State funeral began to assemble early at the Museum, where the body lay in state in the room that is now being used by the Commons. Every walk of Canadian public activity was represented. Besides the high officials of the State, men eminent in the Church, education and social life of the country were represented. Mingling with these, who were mostly young or still in the full vigor of life, were many grey-haired veterans, colleagues of the dead statesman in early campaigns, whose faces were once familiar in the Capital. By 10 o’clock the corridors were crowded. There was much handshaking, and introductions back and forth, while they waited to take their part in the formal farewell to the dead.