No, Mr. Lockwood… I believe the dead are at peace: but it is not right to speak of them with levity.
In the closing stretch, Nelly corrects Lockwood’s ghost-talk with firm piety. The sentence balances belief (‘at peace’) with decorum (‘not… with levity’), which is very Nelly: compassionate but rule-bound. It gives the tale a moral landing after so much unrest. She isn’t dismissing grief or mystery—she’s defending respect for the dead. It’s a small, humane boundary that helps the living heal. Boundaries like this give language for grief without turning it into spectacle.