The female assistants whimpered, the men held their bonnets to their faces, and spoke apart with each other.

The clergyman, meantime, addressed his ghostly consolation to the aged grandmother.
At first she listened, or seemed to listen, to what he said, with the apathy of her usual unconsciousness.

But as, in pressing this theme, he approached so near to her ear that the sense of his words became distinctly intelligible to her, though unheard by those who stood more distant, her countenance at once assumed that stern and expressive cast which characterized her intervals of intelligence.

She drew up her head and body, shook her head in a manner that showed at least impatience, if not scorn of his counsel, and waved her hand slightly, but with a gesture so expressive, as to indicate to all who witnessed it a marked and disdainful rejection of the ghostly consolation proffered to her.
The minister stepped back as if repulsed, and, by lifting gently and dropping his hand, seemed to show at once wonder, sorrow, and compassion for her dreadful state of mind.

The rest of the company sympathized, and a stifled whisper went through them, indicating how much her desperate and determined manner impressed them with awe, and even horror.
In the meantime, the funeral company was completed, by the arrival of one or two persons who had been expected from Fairport.