hem, and now seemed, to their minds, scarcely changed.

She drew near and asked one of them whose grave it was. The child
answered that that was not its name; it was a garden--his brother's.
It was greener, he said, than all the other gardens, and the birds
loved it better because he had been used to feed them. When he had
done speaking, he looked at her with a smile, and kneeling down and
nestling for a moment with his cheek against the turf, bounded merrily
away.

She passed the church, gazing upward at its old tower, went through the
wicket gate, and so into the village. The old sexton, leaning on a
crutch, was taking the air at his cottage door, and gave her good
morrow.

'You are better?' said the child, stopping to speak with him.

'Ay surely,' returned the old man. 'I'm thankful to say, much better.'

'YOU will be quite well soon.'

'With Heaven's leave, and a little patience. But come in, come in!'
The old man limped on before, and warning her of the downward step,
which he achieved himself with no small difficulty, led the way into
his little cottage.

'It is but one room you see. There is another up above, but the stair
has got harder to climb o' late years, and I never use it. I'm
thinking of taking to it again, next summer, though.'

The child wondered how a grey-headed man like him--one of his trade
too--could talk of time so easily. He saw her eyes wandering to the
tools that hung upon the wall, and smiled.

'I warrant now,' he said, 'that you think all those are used in making
graves.'

'Indeed, I wondered that you wanted so many.'

'And well you might. I am a gardener. I dig the ground, and plant
things that are to live and grow. My works don't all moulder away, and
rot in the earth. You see that spade in the centre?'

'The very old one--so notched and worn? Yes.'

'That's the sexton's spade, and it's a well-used one, as you see.
We're healthy people here, but it has done a power of work. If it
could speak now, that spade, it would tell you of many an unexpected
job that it and I have done together; but I forget 'em, for my memory's
a poor one.--That's nothing new,' he added hastily. 'It always was.'

'There are flowers and shrubs to speak to your other work,' said the
child.

'Oh yes. And tall trees. But they are not so separate from the
sexton's labours as you think.'

'No!'

'Not in my mind, and recollection--such as it is,' said the old man.
'Indeed they often