“You can tell me anything, Chriss, you know that.”
The Butterfly looked nervous and paled a little, but began:
“To-day I have been to the funeral of Jess Hanley, a schoolmate of mine. We were always the best of friends, though for some years we have seen comparatively little of each other, because she has been tied down at home so closely on account of sickness. Her husband died of consumption two years ago. A year later their little boy went. Then Jess became ill, and for months she has been expecting to go any day almost. Last week she sent for me and I went. She told me she knew her time was nearly up. She was quite cheerful over it, as she believed she would be with her husband and child again after she had ‘passed over,’ as she called it. She was a spiritualist, and thought that dying isn’t dying at all. One thing she made me promise—a mere sick fancy I suppose—and that was that I should not fail to go to her funeral.
“Well, I went of course. It was like most other respectable funerals. People looked solemn, there were flowers, and a preacher made the usual harrowing remarks, which set everybody weeping—everybody but me. I didn’t shed a tear, yet I loved Jess as well as any one there except her mother, I am sure.
“I didn’t cry because I was so dazed I couldn’t. That was the queer part of it. I was dazed, because all the time the minister was speaking I saw Jess, her husband and little boy running around the coffin, laughing, kissing each other and throwing flowers in all directions. They took the flowers from the mass on top of the coffin, yet there were never any fewer there, though they threw them around by handfuls.
“Once when the preacher said, ‘We shall see our sister no more until that great and dreadful day of the Lord, when all shall stand at the bar of judgment,’ Jess looked at me, laughed in a knowing way and threw a rose into my lap; but when I tried to pick it up it wasn’t there. Now what do you think of all that? Am I crazy, or what was it?”
“What do you think it was, Chrissalyn?”
“I don’t know, and don’t dare to think too much about it lest I get upset over it.”
“Did others see them, do you think?”
“No; I am sure they did not, and that frightens me. If they were really there why didn’t the others see them? If they were not there why should I see them, unless something has gone wrong in my head? I am sure the others saw nothing, for I thought of that and watched them closely and could detect no astonishment in their faces.”