upper world.

Many of the niches were still empty, but in some stood vases of
semi-transparent alabaster.

The newest, which had found a place in the lowest row, contained the
ashes of the young girl's grandfather, Dionysius, and his wife, and
another pair of urns the two mothers, her own and Phaon's.

Both had fallen victims on the same day to the plague, the only
pestilence that had visited this bright coast within the memory of man.
This had happened eight years ago.

At that time Xanthe was still a child, but Phaon a tall lad.

The girl passed this place ten times a day, often thought of the beloved
dead, and, when she chanced to remember them still more vividly, waved a
greeting to the dear ashes, because some impulse urged her to give her
faithful memory some outward expression.

Very rarely did she recall the day when the funeral-pile had cooled, and
the ashes of the two mothers, both so early summoned to the realm of
shadows, were collected, placed in the vases, and added to the other
urns. But now she could not help remembering it, and how she had sat
before one of the pillars of the monument weeping bitterly, and asking
herself again and again, if it were possible that her mother would never,
never come to kiss her, speak caressing words, arrange her hair and pet
her; nay, for the first time, she longed to hear even a sharp reproof
from the lips now closed forever.

Phaon was standing by the other pillar, his eyes covered with his right
hand.

Never before or since had she seen him look so sad, and it cut her to the
heart when she noticed that he trembled as if a chill had seized him,
and, drawing a long breath, pushed back the hair, which like a coalblack
curtain, covered half his forehead. She had wept bitterly, but he shed no
tears. Only a few poor words were exchanged between them in that hour,
but each one still echoed in her ears to-day, as if hours instead of
years intervened between that time and now.

"Mine was so good," Xanthe had sobbed; but he only nodded, and, after
fifteen minutes had passed, said nothing but, "And mine too."

In spite of the long pause that separated the girl's words from the
boy's, they were tenderly united, bound together by the thought, dwelling
uninterruptedly in both childish hearts, "My mother was so good."

It was again Xanthe who, after some time, had broken the silence by
asking "Whom have I now?"

Again it was long ere Phaon, for his only answer, could re