t, rested,
lunched, put on fresh garments, perhaps bathed; but all these things,
soothing as they are, could not by themselves account for the change.
Also she spoke to me in English for the first time. 'You are very kind,'
I murmured, staring.

'Just imagine,' she said to Ambrose, who approached across the crackling
leaves with the camp-stool, tea-basket, and cushions from the seats of
the fly waiting in the forest road a few yards away, 'this little lady
has had nothing to eat all day.'

'Oh I say!' said Brosy sympathetically.

'Little lady?' I repeated to myself, more and more puzzled.

'If you must lean against a hard grave,' said Brosy; 'at least, let me
put this cushion behind your back. And I can make you much more
comfortable if you will stand up a moment.'

'Oh I am so stiff,' I exclaimed as he helped me up; 'I must have been
here hours. What time is it?'

'Past four,' said Brosy.

'_Most_ injudicious,' said his mother. 'Dear Frau X., you must promise
me never to do such a thing again. What would happen to those sweet
children of yours if their little mother were to be laid up?'

Dear, dear me. What was all this? Sweet children? Little mother? I could
only sit on my cushions and stare.

'This,' she explained, noticing I suppose that I looked astonished, and
thinking it was because Brosy was spreading out cups and lighting the
spirit-lamp so very close to the deceased Finn, 'is not desecration. It
is not as though we were having tea in a churchyard, which of course we
never would have. This is unconsecrated ground. One cannot desecrate
that which has never been consecrated. Desecration can only begin after
consecration has taken place.'

I bowed my head and then, cheered into speech by the sight of an
approaching rusk, I added, 'I know a family with a mausoleum, and on
fine days they go and have coffee at it.'

'Germans, of course,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, smiling, but with an
effort. 'One can hardly imagine English----'

'Oh yes, Germans. When any one goes to see them, if it is fine they say,
"Let us drink coffee at the mausoleum." And then they do.'

'Is it a special treat?' asked Brosy.

'The view there is very lovely.'

'Oh I see,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, relieved. 'They only sit outside. I
was afraid for a moment that they actually----'

'Oh no,' I said, eating what seemed to be the most perfect rusk ever
produced by German baker, 'not actually.'

'What a sweet spot this is to be bur