asant summers.
I presented him a copy of "The Shroud," the organ of the American
Undertakers' Association, published at Syracuse, New York. I subscribe
for "The Shroud" because it has a bright wit-and-humor column, and also
for the sweet satisfaction of knowing that there is still virtue left in
Syracuse.

The First Gravedigger greeted me courteously, and when I explained
briefly my posthumous predilections we grasped hands across an open grave
(that he had just digged) and were fast friends.

"Do you believe in cremation, sir?" he asked.

"No, never; it's pagan."

"Aye, you are a gentleman--and about burying folks in churches?"

"Never! A grave should be out under the open sky, where the sun by day
and the moon and stars----"

"Right you are. How Shakespeare can ever stand it to have his grave
walked over by a boy choir is more than I can understand. If I had him
here I could look after him right. Come, I'll show you the company I
keep!"

Not twenty feet from where we stood was a fine but plain granite block to
the memory of the second wife of James Russell Lowell.

"Just Mr. Lowell and one friend stood by the grave when we lowered the
coffin--just two men and no one else but the young clergyman who belongs
here. Mr. Lowell shook hands with me when he went away. He gave me a
guinea and wrote me two letters afterward from America; the last was sent
only a week before he died. I'll show 'em to you when we go to the
office. Say, did you know him?"

He pointed to a slab, on which I read the name of Sydney Smith. Then we
went to the graves of Mulready, the painter; Kemble, the actor; Sir
Charles Eastlake, the artist. Next came the resting-place of
Buckle--immortal for writing a preface--dead at thirty-seven, with his
history unwrit; Leigh Hunt sleeps near, and above his dust a column that
explains how it was erected by friends. In life he asked for bread; when
dead they gave him a costly pile of stone.

Here are also the graves of Madame Tietjens; of Charles Mathews, the
actor; and of Admiral Sir John Ross, the Arctic explorer.

"And just down the hill aways another big man is buried. I knew him well;
he used to come and visit us often. The last time I saw him I said as he
was going away, 'Come again, sir; you are always welcome!'

"'Thank you, Mr. First Gravedigger,' says he; 'I will come again before
long, and make you an extended visit.' In less than a year the hearse
brought him. That's his grave--push th