That Saturday evening after we talked the matter over, the girls sent an invitation over to Mr. Hartwell's house to the miners to attend the funeral with us. The invitation was answered by the younger miner, Harding. He accepted the invitation for himself and his friend, stating that Ashley (the other one) was temporarily absent in the city. The note was beautifully written and every word was spelled correctly. Next morning, a few minutes before it was time to proceed to the church, the young men came in. They were scrupulously dressed in black and their attire even to their hats and gloves was in perfect taste. Mildred betrayed more agitation than on the first meeting. She is a strange girl and the loss of her father almost crushed her. Mabel, however, received them with a grace which was queenly and in her new robes she looked like a queen indeed. When it came time to go to the church, I supposed, of course, the young men would offer to escort the girls. Besides Mildred, Mabel and myself, Aunt Abigail, James' wife's grandmother had come down to the funeral. You know she is old now--past 73; she never was very pretty and coming down from the country her dress and bonnet--good land, she was a sight. Mabel could not conceal her mortification, and I must say I should have been glad if she had not come. As we stood up to go, the younger miner said gently: "Ashley, will you not see to Mrs. Wolcott?" and then he went up to Aunt Abigail and with as much kindly politeness as I ever saw displayed, asked her to lean upon him in the walk to the church. The other one gave me his arm, at the same time saying: "The young ladies are the nearer relatives, they should walk in front." His face was fair, but the arm I took was as hard as iron. I said: "No matter, Mildred take the other arm of Mr. Ashley and Mabel take that of Mr. Harding!" This was done except that somehow in the confusion Mildred took the arm of Harding and Mabel sought the disengaged arm of Ashley. At the church we were seated in the front pew, of course. You never saw such a crowd at a funeral. I noticed as we worked our way up the aisle, men there that had not been in a church before for years. There were, besides, the Brown, the Smith and the Jones families who were never before known to attend an ordinary funeral. I mention this merely to show how much James was respected.