Solomon Wells, during the singing, before he offered prayer, had cast sundry perplexed glances at a group of strangers on his right, and then at his list.  He was quite sure that they were not mentioned thereon.  Once he looked perplexedly at Paulina Maria, but she was singing hard, in a true strong voice, and did not heed him.  The strangers sat behind her.  There was a large man, lumbering and uncomfortable in his best clothes, a small woman, and three little girls, all dressed in blue delaine gowns and black silk mantillas and blue bonnets.

The minister had a strong conviction that these people should be mentioned in his prayer.  He gave his daughter Eliza a little nudge, and looked inquiringly at them and at her, but she shook her head slightly—­she did not know who they were.  Her father had to content himself with vaguely alluding in his petition to all other relatives of this afflicted family.

During the eulogy upon the departed, which followed, he made also casual mention of the respect in which he was held by strangers as well as by his own towns-people.  The minister gave poor Abel a very good character.  He spoke at length of his honesty, industry, and sobriety.  He touched lightly upon the unusual sadness of the circumstances of his death.  He expressed no doubt; he gave no hints of any dark tragedy.  “Don’t speak as if you thought he killed himself; if you do, it’ll make her about crazy,” Paulina Maria had charged him.  Ann, listening jealously to every word, could take no exception to one.  Solomon Wells was very mindful of the feelings of others.  He seemed at times to move with a sidewise motion of his very spirit to avoid hurting theirs.

After dwelling upon Abel Edwards’s simple virtues, fairly dinning them like sweet notes into the memories of his neighbors, Solomon Wells, with a sweep of his black coat-skirts around him, sat down.  Then there was a solemn and somewhat awkward pause.  The people looked at each other; they did not know what to do next.  All the customary routine of a funeral was disturbed.  The next step in the regular order of funeral exercises was to pass decorously around a coffin, pause a minute, bend over it with a long last look at the white face therein; the next, to move out of the room and take places in the funeral procession.  Now that was out of the question; they were puzzled as to further proceedings.

Doctor Seth Prescott made the first move.  He arose, and his wife after him, with a soft rustle of her silken skirts.  They both went up to Ann Edwards, shook hands, and went out of the room.  After them Mrs. Squire Merritt, with Lucina in hand, did likewise; then everybody else, except the relatives and the minister and his daughter.