chyards being
not at all in my way, whatever they may be in yours. Finish what you
want to do before I come back, and let us be sure and get home again
before night."

With those words she turned about, and retracing her steps, advanced
with her face towards me. It was the face of an elderly woman, brown,
rugged, and healthy, with nothing dishonest or suspicious in the look
of it. Close to the church she stopped to pull her shawl closer round
her.

"Queer," she said to herself, "always queer, with her whims and her
ways, ever since I can remember her. Harmless, though--as harmless,
poor soul, as a little child."

She sighed--looked about the burial-ground nervously--shook her head,
as if the dreary prospect by no means pleased her, and disappeared
round the corner of the church.

I doubted for a moment whether I ought to follow and speak to her or
not. My intense anxiety to find myself face to face with her companion
helped me to decide in the negative. I could ensure seeing the woman
in the shawl by waiting near the churchyard until she came
back--although it seemed more than doubtful whether she could give me
the information of which I was in search. The person who had delivered
the letter was of little consequence. The person who had written it was
the one centre of interest, and the one source of information, and that
person I now felt convinced was before me in the churchyard.

While these ideas were passing through my mind I saw the woman in the
cloak approach close to the grave, and stand looking at it for a little
while. She then glanced all round her, and taking a white linen cloth
or handkerchief from under her cloak, turned aside towards the brook.
The little stream ran into the churchyard under a tiny archway in the
bottom of the wall, and ran out again, after a winding course of a few
dozen yards, under a similar opening. She dipped the cloth in the
water, and returned to the grave. I saw her kiss the white cross, then
kneel down before the inscription, and apply her wet cloth to the
cleansing of it.

After considering how I could show myself with the least possible
chance of frightening her, I resolved to cross the wall before me, to
skirt round it outside, and to enter the churchyard again by the stile
near the grave, in order that she might see me as I approached. She
was so absorbed over her employment that she did not hear me coming
until I had stepped over the stile. Then she looke