care had bordered with votive
flowers. Yes, in that direction there was still a gleam of colour; could
it be of flowers in that biting winter time?--the moon is so deceptive,
it silvers into the hue of the jessamines the green of the everlastings.

He passed towards the white grave-mound. His sight had duped him; no
pale flower, no green "everlasting" on its neglected border,--only brown
mould, withered stalks, streaks of snow.

"And yet," he said sadly, "she told me she had never broken a promise;
and she had given a promise to the dying child. Ah! she is too happy now
to think of the dead."

So murmuring, he was about to turn towards the town, when close by
that child's grave he saw another. Round that other there were pale
"everlastings," dwarfed blossoms of the laurestinus; at the four angles
the drooping bud of a Christmas rose; at the head of the grave was a
white stone, its sharp edges cutting into the starlit air; and on the
head, in fresh letters, were inscribed these words:--

To the Memory of
L. M.
Aged 17,
Died October 29, A. D. 18--,
This stone, above the grave to which her mortal
remains are consigned, beside that of an infant not
more sinless, is consecrated by those who
most mourn and miss her,
ISABEL CAMERON,
WALTER MELVILLE.
"Suffer the little children to come unto me."

CHAPTER XI.

THE next morning Mr. Emlyn, passing from his garden to the town of
Moleswich, descried a human form stretched on the burial-ground,
stirring restlessly but very slightly, as if with an involuntary shiver,
and uttering broken sounds, very faintly heard, like the moans that a
man in pain strives to suppress and cannot.

The rector hastened to the spot. The man was lying, his face downward,
on a grave-mound, not dead, not asleep.

"Poor fellow overtaken by drink, I fear," thought the gentle pastor; and
as it was the habit of his mind to compassionate error even more than
grief, he accosted the supposed sinner in very soothing tones--trying to
raise him from the ground--and with very kindly words.

Then the man lifted his face from its pillow on the grave-mound, looked
round him dreamily into the gray, blank air of the cheerless morn,
and rose to his feet quietly and slowly. The vicar was startled; he
recognized the face of him he had last seen in the magnificent affluence
of health and strength. But the character of th