the ceremony it took three quarters of an hour to reach the
cemetery. Paul, sobbing, headed the procession; Monsieur Bourais
followed, and then came the principal inhabitants of the town, the
women covered with black capes, and Felicite. The memory of her
nephew, and the thought that she had not been able to render him
these honours, made her doubly unhappy, and she felt as if he were
being buried with Virginia.

Madame Aubain's grief was uncontrollable. At first she rebelled
against God, thinking that he was unjust to have taken away her
child--she who had never done anything wrong, and whose conscience
was so pure! But no! she ought to have taken her South. Other
doctors would have saved her. She accused herself, prayed to be
able to join her child, and cried in the midst of her dreams. Of
the latter, one more especially haunted her. Her husband, dressed
like a sailor, had come back from a long voyage, and with tears in
his eyes told her that he had received the order to take Virginia
away. Then they both consulted about a hiding-place.

Once she came in from the garden, all upset. A moment before (and
she showed the place), the father and daughter had appeared to
her, one after the other; they did nothing but look at her.

During several months she remained inert in her room. Felicite
scolded her gently; she must keep up for her son and also for the
other one, for "her memory."

"Her memory!" replied Madame Aubain, as if she were just
awakening, "Oh! yes, yes, you do not forget her!" This was an
allusion to the cemetery where she had been expressly forbidden to
go.

But Felicite went there every day. At four o'clock exactly, she
would go through the town, climb the hill, open the gate and
arrive at Virginia's tomb. It was a small column of pink marble
with a flat stone at its base, and it was surrounded by a little
plot enclosed by chains. The flower-beds were bright with
blossoms. Felicite watered their leaves, renewed the gravel, and
knelt on the ground in order to till the earth properly. When
Madame Aubain was able to visit the cemetery she felt very much
relieved and consoled.

Years passed, all alike and marked by no other events than the
return of the great church holidays: Easter, Assumption, All
Saints' Day. Household happenings constituted the only data to
which in later years they often referred. Thus, in 1825, workmen
painted the vestibule; in 1827, a portion of the roof almost
killed a man by f