Page:George Sand by Bertha Thomas.djvu/257

Rh church, a few paces distant. The village priest came, preceded by three chorister-boys and the venerable singing-clerk of the parish, to perform the ceremony. A portion of the little churchyard, railed off from the rest and planted with evergreen-trees, contains the graves of her grandmother, her father, and the two little grandchildren she had lost. A plain granite tomb in their midst now marks the spot where George Sand was laid, literally buried in flowers.

A great spirit was gone from the world; and a good spirit, it will be generally acknowledged; an artist in whose work the genuine desire to leave those she worked for better than she found them is one inspiring motive. Such endeavour may seem to fail, and she affirmed, "A hundred times it does fail in its immediate results. But it helps notwithstanding to preserve that tradition of good desires and of good deeds, without which all would perish."