It was a very expensive "burying." Alathea did tell me what "the gin and whiskey for the mourners alone come to," though I have forgotten.

But we lost sight of the ignoble features of the occasion when the sublime office for the Burial of the Dead began.

When it was ended I understood one of Betty's brusque remarks, which had puzzled me when it came out at breakfast-time.
"You'll 'ave to take what ye can get for your dinners, gentlemen," she had said; "for the singers is to meet at three, and I can't pretend to do more nor I can." The women mourners at the funeral (there were a few) all wore large black silk hoods, which completely disguised them; but at the end of the service one of them pushed hers back, and I recognized the golden hair of Alathea, as she joined a group rather formally collected on one side of the grave.

She looked round as if to see that all were ready, and then in such a soprano voice as one seldom hears, she "started" the funeral hymn.

It was the Old Psalm-- "O GOD, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come; Our shelter from life's stormy blast, And our eternal home." I had heard very little chorus-singing of any kind; and I did not then know that for the best I had heard--that of St.George's choir at Windsor--voices were systematically imported from this particular district.