ss that stile again.
Because (as I said to myself) if there had been a hill to go up, that
would be so different and so easy; but going down into a place like
this, whence the only escape must be by steps, and where any flight must
be along channels that run in and out of graves and tombstones, I tried
not to be afraid, yet could not altogether help it.

But lo! when I came to the north side of the tower, scarcely thinking
what to look for, I found myself in the middle of a place which made me
stop and wonder. Here were six little grassy tuffets, according to the
length of children, all laid east and west, without any stint of room,
harmoniously.

From the eldest to the youngest, one could almost tell the age at which
their lowly stature stopped, and took its final measurement.

And in the middle was a larger grave, to comfort and encourage them, as
a hen lies down among her chicks and waits for them to shelter. Without
a name to any of them, all these seven graves lay together, as in a
fairy ring of rest, and kind compassion had prevented any stranger from
coming to be buried there.

I would not sit on my mother's grave for fear of crushing the pretty
grass, which some one tended carefully; but I stood at its foot, and
bent my head, and counted all the little ones. Then I thought of my
father in the grove of peaches, more than six thousand miles away, on
the banks of the soft Blue River. And a sense of desolate sorrow and of
the blessing of death overwhelmed me.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE SEXTON

With such things in my mind, it took me long to come back to my work
again. It even seemed a wicked thing, so near to all these proofs of
God's great visitation over us, to walk about and say, "I will do this,"
or even to think, "I will try to do that." My own poor helplessness, and
loss of living love to guide me, laid upon my heart a weight from which
it scarcely cared to move. All was buried, all was done with, all had
passed from out the world, and left no mark but graves behind. What good
to stir anew such sadness, even if a poor weak thing like me could move
its mystery?

Time, however, and my nurse Betsy, and Jacob Rigg the gardener, brought
me back to a better state of mind, and renewed the right courage
within me. But, first of all, Jacob Rigg aroused my terror and interest
vividly. It may be remembered that this good man had been my father's
gardener at the time of our great calamity, and almost alone of the