Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/316

314 upright tombstones were crowded together as if there were not room for the very dead. It may be a weakness, though growing out of all that is most redeeming in our nature,—the desire that is in us to make the City of the Departed beautiful, as well as sacred. The green yew that flings down its shadow, the wild-flowers that spring up in the long grass, take away from the desolation, they are the type and sign of a world beyond themselves. Even as spring brings back the leaf to the bough, the blossom to the grass, so will a more glorious spring return to that which is now but a little human dust. Suddenly, Walter Maynard turned from the window, out of which he had been gazing long and silently: "And there," exclaimed he, "I shall be laid in the course of a few days, it may be hours. I loathe those dull, damp stones. Do you care where you are buried?" said he, turning suddenly to Lavinia. "Not the least! What difference can it make?" asked she. "It is strange," continued he, "that the