“So peaceful,” she added, with another shake of her head, and Miss Bonington chimed in with the comment, “Peaceful and restful.” Then they both looked at me and I mumbled indistinctly that I had no doubt he did; the fact being that the inmates of coffins are not in general much addicted to boisterous activity.
“Ah!” Miss Dewsnep resumed, “how little did I think when I first saw him, sitting up in bed so cheerful in that nice, sunny room in the house at⸺”
“Why not?” interrupted Mrs. Morris. “Did you think he was going to live for ever?”
“No, Mrs. Morris, ma’am,” was the dignified reply, “I did not. No such idea ever entered my head. I know too well that we mortals are all born to be gathered in at last as the—er—as the⸺”
“Sparks fly upwards,” murmured Miss Bonington.
“As the corn is gathered in at harvest time,” Miss Dewsnep continued with slight emphasis. “But not to be cast into a burning fiery furnace. When I first saw him in the other house at⸺”
“I don’t see what objection you need have to cremation,” interrupted Mrs. Morris. “It was his own choice, and a good one, too. Look at those great cemeteries. What sense is there in letting the dead occupy the space that is wanted for the living?”
“Well,” said Miss Dewsnep, “I may be old-fashioned, but it does seem to me that a nice, quiet funeral with plenty of flowers and a proper, decent grave in a church-yard is the natural end to a human life. That is what I look forward to, myself.”
“Then you are not likely to be disappointed,” said Mrs. Morris; “though I don’t quite see what satisfaction you expect to get out of your own funeral.”
Miss Dewsnep made no reply, and an interval of dismal silence followed. Mrs. Morris was evidently impatient of Dr. Cropper’s unpunctuality. I could see that she was listening intently for the sound of the bell, as she had been even while the conversation was in progress; indeed, I had been dimly conscious all the while of a sense of tension and anxiety on her part. She had seemed to me to watch her two friends with a sort of uneasiness, and to give a quite uncalled-for attention to their rather trivial utterances.