You render yourself at the house an hour or two after the time specified.  If you were to sit long in the mournful circle you might be rendered unfit for doing any thing for a week.

Your dress is black, and during the time of waiting you compose your visage into a “tristful ’haviour,” and lean in silent solemnity upon the top of your cane, thinking about—­ last night’s party.  This is a necessary hypocrisy, and assists marvellously the sadness of the ceremony.  You walk in a procession with the others, your carriage following in the street.  The first places are yielded to the relations of the deceased.

The coffins of persons of distinction are carried in the hands of bearers, who walk with their hats off.

You walk with another, in seemly order, and converse in a low tone; first upon the property of the defunct, and next upon the politics of the day.  You walk with the others into the church, where service is said over the body.  It is optional to go to the grave or not.  When you go away, you enter your carriage and return to your business or your pleasures.

A funeral in the morning, a ball in the evening,”—­so runs the world away.”

CHAPTER XIII.  SERVANTS.

Servants are a necessary evil.  He who shall contrive to obviate their necessity, or remove their inconveniences, will render to human comfort a greater benefit than has yet been conferred by all the useful-knowledge societies of the age.  They are domestic spies, who continually embarrass the intercourse of the members of a family, or possess themselves of private information that renders their presence hateful, and their absence dangerous.  It is a rare thing to see persons who are not controlled by their servants.  Theirs, too, is not the only kitchen cabinet which begins by serving and ends by ruling.

If we judge from the frequency and inconvenience of an opposite course, we should say that the most important precept to be observed is, never to be afraid of your servants.  We have known many ladies who, without any reason in the world, lived in a state of perfect subjugation to their servants, who were afraid to give a direction, and who submitted to disobedience and insult, where no danger could be apprehended from discharging them.

If a servant offends you by any trifling or occasional omission of duty, reprove the fault with mild severity; if the error be repeated often, and be of a gross description, never hesitate, but discharge the servant instantly, without any altercation of language.  You cannot easily find another who will serve you worse.

As for those precautions which are ordinarily taken, to secure the procurence of good servants, they are, without exception, utterly useless.  The author of the Rambler has remarked, that a written character of a servant is worth about as much as a discharge from the Old Bailey.  I never, but once, took any trouble to inquire what reputation a servant had held in former situations.  On that occasion, I heard that I had engaged the very Shakespeare of menials,—­ Aristides was not more honest,—­Zeno more truth-telling,—­nor Abdiel more faithful.  This fellow, after insulting me daily for a week, disappeared with my watch and three pair of boots.