see my gardens hereabout. Look at the
window there. I made, and have kept, that plot of ground entirely with
my own hands. By this time next year I shall hardly see the sky, the
boughs will have grown so thick. I have my winter work at night
besides.'

He opened, as he spoke, a cupboard close to where he sat, and produced
some miniature boxes, carved in a homely manner and made of old wood.

'Some gentlefolks who are fond of ancient days, and what belongs to
them,' he said, 'like to buy these keepsakes from our church and ruins.
Sometimes, I make them of scraps of oak, that turn up here and there;
sometimes of bits of coffins which the vaults have long preserved. See
here--this is a little chest of the last kind, clasped at the edges
with fragments of brass plates that had writing on 'em once, though it
would be hard to read it now. I haven't many by me at this time of
year, but these shelves will be full--next summer.'

The child admired and praised his work, and shortly afterwards
departed; thinking, as she went, how strange it was, that this old man,
drawing from his pursuits, and everything around him, one stern moral,
never contemplated its application to himself; and, while he dwelt upon
the uncertainty of human life, seemed both in word and deed to deem
himself immortal. But her musings did not stop here, for she was wise
enough to think that by a good and merciful adjustment this must be
human nature, and that the old sexton, with his plans for next summer,
was but a type of all mankind.

Full of these meditations, she reached the church. It was easy to find
the key belonging to the outer door, for each was labelled on a scrap
of yellow parchment. Its very turning in the lock awoke a hollow
sound, and when she entered with a faltering step, the echoes that it
raised in closing, made her start.

If the peace of the simple village had moved the child more strongly,
because of the dark and troubled ways that lay beyond, and through
which she had journeyed with such failing feet, what was the deep
impression of finding herself alone in that solemn building, where the
very light, coming through sunken windows, seemed old and grey, and the
air, redolent of earth and mould, seemed laden with decay, purified by
time of all its grosser particles, and sighing through arch and aisle,
and clustered pillars, like the breath of ages gone! Here was the
broken pavement, worn, so long ago, by pious feet, that Time