CHAPTER 1.
When old Mr.Gilfil died, thirty years ago, there was general sorrow in Shepperton; and if black cloth had not been hung round the pulpit and reading-desk, by order of his nephew and principal legatee, the parishioners would certainly have subscribed the necessary sum out of their own pockets, rather than allow such a tribute of respect to be wanting.

All the farmers' wives brought out their black bombasines; and Mrs.Jennings, at the Wharf, by appearing the first Sunday after Mr.
Gilfil's death in her salmon-coloured ribbons and green shawl, excited the severest remark.

To be sure, Mrs.Jennings was a new-comer, and town-bred, so that she could hardly be expected to have very clear notions of what was proper; but, as Mrs.Higgins observed in an undertone to Mrs.Parrot when they were coming out of church, 'Her husband, who'd been born i' the parish, might ha' told her better.' An unreadiness to put on black on all available occasions, or too great an alacrity in putting it off, argued, in Mrs.Higgins's opinion, a dangerous levity of character, and an unnatural insensibility to the essential fitness of things.
'Some folks can't a-bear to put off their colours,' she remarked; 'but that was never the way i' _my_ family.

Why, Mrs.Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr.Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o' black two year together!' 'Ah,' said Mrs.Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, 'there isn't many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs.
Higgins.' Mrs.Higgins, who was an elderly widow, 'well left', reflected with complacency that Mrs.Parrot's observation was no more than just, and that Mrs.Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of.
Even dirty Dame Fripp, who was a very rare church-goer, had been to Mrs.
Hackit to beg a bit of old crape, and with this sign of grief pinned on her little coal-scuttle bonnet, was seen dropping her curtsy opposite the reading-desk.

This manifestation of respect towards Mr.Gilfil's memory on the part of Dame Fripp had no theological bearing whatever.