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"
"
His, m' lady?"
Yes--your young Marse Sellers from England that's burnt up."
She was alone with the ashes--alone before she could take half a breath.
Then she went after Mulberry Sellers, purposing to make short work with
his program, whatever it might be; "for," said she, "when his
sentimentals are up, he's a numskull, and there's no knowing what
extravagance he'll contrive, if you let him alone." She found him.
He had found the flag and was bringing it. When she heard that his idea
was to have the remains "lie in state, and invite the government and the
public," she broke it up. She said:
"Your intentions are all right--they always are--you want to do honour to
the remains, and surely nobody can find any fault with that, for he was
your kin; but you are going the wrong way about it, and you will see it
yourself if you stop and think. You can't file around a basket of ashes
trying to look sorry for it and make a sight that is really solemn,
because the solemner it is, the more it isn't--anybody can see that. It
would be so with one basket; it would be three times so with three.
Well, it stands to reason that if it wouldn't be solemn with one mourner,
it wouldn't be with a procession--and there would be five thousand people
here. I don't know but it would be pretty near ridiculous; I think it
would. No, Mulberry, they can't lie in state--it would be a mistake.
Give that up and think of something else."
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