ened between them and the city, the horses were
mud-splashed to their flanks. They turned into a gravel way and up an
incline of drive. At its summit the white monuments of the dead spread
in an extensive city before them--a calm city, with an occasional cross
standing boldly against the sky.

"Lots of these were my funerals," explained Mr. Lux. "That granite block
over there--this marble-base column. I buried old man Snift of the Bronx
last July. They've been four Lux funerals in that family the past two
years. His cross over there's the whitest Carrara in this yard."

Tillie turned her little tear-ravaged face toward the window, but her
eyes were heavy and without life.

"I--I don't know what I'd do if you wasn't along, Mr. Lux. I--I'm
scared."

"I'm here--don't you worry. Don't you worry. I'm just afraid that little
lightweight jacket ain't warm enough."

"I got a heavier one; but this is mournin', and it's all I got in
black."

"It's not the outside mournin' that counts for anything, missy; it's the
crape you wear on your heart."

They buried Angie on a modest hillside, where the early sun could warm
her and where the first spring anemones might find timid place. The
soggy, new-turned earth filled up her grave with muffled thumps that
fell dully on Tillie's heart and tortured her nerve-ends.

"Oh! oh! oh!" Her near-the-surface tears fell afresh; and when the
little bed was completed, and the pillow of peace placed at its head,
she was weak and tremble-lipped, like a child who has cried itself into
exhaustion.

"Ah, little missy!" said Mr. Lux, breathing outward and passing his hand
over his side-swept hair. "Life is lonely, ain't it? Lonely--lonely!"

"Y-yes," she said.

The rain had ceased, but a cold wind flapped Tillie's skirts and wrapped
them about her limbs. They were silhouetted on their little hilltop
against the slate-colored sky, and all about them were the marble
monoliths and the Rocks of Ages of the dead.

"Goodbye, Angie!" she said, through her tears. "Goodbye, Angie!" And
they went down the hillside, with the wind tugging at their hats, into
their waiting carriage, and back as they had come, except that the
hearse rolled swifter and lighter and the raindrops had dried on the
glass.

"Oh-ah!" said Mr. Lux, breathing outward again and blinking his deep-set
eyes. "Life is lonely--lonely, ain't it?--for those like you and me?"

"Lonely," she repeated.

He patted her little black handba