"
Here I felt a little strangely, not knowing what to say, or
whether to offer consolation or no, and was beginning to retire,
when he opened a side door and told us to walk in. Here I was no
less astonished; for I found a large room, filled with young girls,
from three or four years of age up to fifteen and sixteen, dressed all
in white, with wreaths of flowers on their heads, and bouquets in
their hands. Following our conductor through all these girls, who were
playing about in high spirits, we came to a table, at the end of the
room, covered with a white cloth, on which lay a coffin, about three
feet long, with the body of his child. The coffin was lined on the
outside with white cloth, and on the inside with white satin, and
was strewed with flowers. Through an open door we saw, in another
room, a few elderly people in common dresses; while the benches and
tables thrown up in a corner, and the stained walls, gave evident
signs of the last night's "high go." Feeling, like Garrick, between
tragedy and comedy, an uncertainty of purpose and a little
awkwardness, I asked the man when the funeral would take place, and
being told that it would move toward the mission in about an hour,
took my leave.
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