At a house funeral the clergyman stands near the head of the coffin while he reads the service, the audience standing or sitting as the custom of the special service used demands.
At a church funeral, the clergyman meets the coffin at the door and precedes it up the aisle, reading the burial service. As he begins to read, the congregation rises and stands as the procession moves forward. When, after the services, the coffin is lifted by the bearers, the congregation again rises and remains standing until the casket has been taken from the church. A private interment, or one at the convenience of the family, is now almost universal. Unless invited, no outsider, even if he be a friend of the family, will go to the cemetery under such circumstances.
After the funeral, and when one’s friends have begun to realize sorrow, is the time when it is the hardest to bear. It is then that the sympathetic person may do much toward brightening the long and dreary days in the house of mourning. Flowers left at the door occasionally, frequent calls, an occasional cheering note, a bright book lent, are a few of the small courtesies that amount to actual benefactions. Only those who have had to learn to live with a grief that is almost forgot by others know what such tokens of thoughtful sympathy mean. All who count themselves friends should call within a month, always telling the maid that if the ladies do not feel like appearing they are not to do so.
The heaviest mourning demanded by conventionality is worn by a widow, but even she is now allowed to dispense with the heavy crape veil. In its place is the long veil of nun’s veiling, which is worn over the face only at the funeral. With it is a face-veil, trimmed with crape, and a white ruche or “widow’s cap” stitched inside of the brim of the small bonnet. The dress is of Henrietta cloth, or other lusterless material, and may be trimmed with crape. Black suède gloves and black-bordered handkerchiefs—if these are liked—are proper. The widow seldom discards her veil under two years,—some widows wear it always. After the first year it is shortened.
It is a matter for congratulation that crape, that most expensive, unwholesome, perishable and inartistic of materials, is worn less and less with each passing year. Surely to have to wrap one’s self in its stiff and malodorous folds adds discomfort to grief. It is now seldom worn except by widows, although a daughter may wear it for a parent, a mother for her child.