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She glanced round the house preparatory to locking it up and starting to notify Anthony Croft. She would just run over and talk to him about ordering the coffin; then she could attend to all other necessary preliminaries herself. The remains had been well-to-do, and there was no occasion for sordid economy, so aunt Hitty determined in her own mind to have the latest fashion in everything, including a silver coffin plate. The Butterfield coffin plates were a thing to be proud of. They had been sacredly preserved for years and years, and the entire collection–numbering nineteen in all had been framed, and adorned the walls of the deceased lady’s best room. They were not of solid silver, it is true, but even so it was a matter of distinction to have belonged to a family that could afford to have nineteen coffin plates of any sort.

Aunt Hitty planned certain dramatic details as she walked town the road to Croft’s. It came to her in a burst of inspiration that she would have two ministers: one for the long prayer, and one for the short prayer and the remarks. She hoped that Elder Weeks would be adequate in the latter direction. She knew she couldn’t for the life of her think of anything interesting about Mrs. Butterfield, save that she possessed nineteen coffin plates, and brought her hens to Edgewood every summer for their health; but she had heard Elder Weeks make a moving discourse out of less than that. To be sure, he needed priming, but she was equal to that. There was Ivory Brown’s funeral: how would that have gone on if it hadn’t been for her? Wasn’t the elder ten minutes late, and what would his remarks have amounted to without her suggestions? You might almost say she was the author of the discourse, for she gave him all the appropriate ideas. As she had helped him out of the wagon she had said: “Are you prepared? I thought not; but there’s no time to lose. Remember there are aged parents; two brothers living, one railroading in Spokane Falls, the other clerking in Washington, D. C. Don’t mention the Universalists,–there’s ben two in the fam’ly; nor insanity,– there ‘s ben one o’ them. The girl in the corner by the clock is the one that the remains has been keeping comp’ny with. If you can make some genteel allusions to her, it’ll be much appreciated by his folks.”

As to the long prayer, she knew that the Rev. Mr. Ford could be relied on to pray until aunt Becky Burnham should twitch him by the coat tails. She had done it more than once. She had also, on one occasion, got up and straightened his ministerial neckerchief, which he had gradually “prayed” around his saintly neck until it was behind the right ear.

These plans proved so fascinating to aunt Hitty that she walked quite half a mile beyond Croft’s, and was obliged to retrace her steps. She conceived bands of black alpaca for the sleeves and hats of the pallbearers, and a festoon of the same over the front gate, if there should be any left over. She planned the singing by the choir. There had been no real choir-singing at any funeral in Edgewood since the Rev. Joshua Beckwith had died. She would ask them to open with–

Rebel mourner, cease your weepin’.
You too must die.

This was a favorite funeral hymn. The only difficulty would be in keeping aunt Becky Burnham from pitching it in a key where nobody but a soprano skylark, accustomed to warble at a great height, could possibly sing it. It was generally given at the grave, when Elder Weeks officiated; but it never satisfied aunt Hitty, because the good elder always looked so unpicturesque when he threw a red bandanna handkerchief over his head before beginning the twenty-seven verses. After the long prayer, she would have Almira Berry give for a solo–