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imitate if they could. "What has he done, to be so loved, praised, and
mourned?" they thought, with a tender sort of wonder; and the answer
seemed to come to them as never before, for never had they been brought
so near the solemn truth of life and death. "It was not what he did but
what he was that made him so beloved. All that was sweet and noble in
him still lives; for goodness is the only thing we can take with us when
we die, the only thing that can comfort those we leave behind, and help
us to meet again hereafter."

This feeling was in many hearts when they went away to lay him, with
prayer and music, under the budding oak that leaned over his grave,
a fit emblem of the young life just beginning its new spring. As the
children did their part, the beauty of the summer day soothed their
sorrow, and something of the soft brightness of the June sunshine seemed
to gild their thoughts, as it gilded the flower-strewn mound they left
behind. The true and touching words spoken cheered as well as impressed
them, and made them feel that their friend was not lost but gone on
into a higher class of the great school whose Master is eternal love
and wisdom. So the tears soon dried, and the young faces looked up like
flowers after rain. But the heaven-sent shower sank into the earth, and
they were the stronger, sweeter for it, more eager to make life brave
and beautiful, because death had gently shown them what it should be.

When the boys came home they found their mother already returned, and
Jill upon the parlor sofa listening to her account of the funeral with
the same quiet, hopeful look which their own faces wore; for somehow the
sadness seemed to have gone, and a sort of Sunday peace remained.

"I'm glad it was all so sweet and pleasant. Come and rest, you look
so tired;" and Jill held out her hands to greet them--a crumpled
handkerchief in one and a little bunch of fading lilies in the other.

Jack sat down in the low chair beside her and leaned his head against
the arm of the sofa, for he was tired. But Frank walked slowly up and
down the long rooms with a serious yet serene look on his face, for he
felt as if he had learned something that day, and would always be the
better for it. Presently he said, stopping before his mother, who leaned
in the easy-chair looking up at the picture of her boys' father,--

"I should like to have just such things said about me when I die."

"So should I, if I deserved them as Ed d