d not be afraid of doing wrong about the funeral, dear. We must
make some kind of little coffin; and Roger will help me to dig a grave,
and if we have no pastor to say prayers, you and I know that in our
hearts we shall be thanking God for taking our little brother to be safe
and happy with him."

"And then I may plant some flowers upon his grave, may not I? And that
will bring the bees humming over it. How fond he was of going near the
hives, to hear the bees hum! Where shall his grave be?"

"Under one of the trees, one of the shadiest."

"Oh, dear--here comes Ailwin! I wish she would let us alone."

Ailwin was crying too much to speak. She took the body from Mildred's
arms with a gentle force, kissing the little girl as she did so. She
covered up the baby's face with her apron as she walked away.

The children went among the trees to fix on a spot for the grave. They
found more than one that they liked; but suddenly remembered that the
ground was hard, and that they had no spade, nor any tool with which
they could make a deep hole.

Oliver was greatly disturbed at this,--more than he chose to show when
he saw how troubled his sister also was. After thinking for some time
to no purpose,--feeling that he could not bear to commit the body to the
foul flood, and remembering with horror how many animals were scratching
up the earth all over the Red-hill, where the ground was not too hard,
and how many odious birds of prey were now hovering in the air, at all
hours,--after thinking over these things with a heavy heart, he begged
Mildred to go home to Ailwin, and to ask Roger to come to him in the
wood, to consult what must be done.

Mildred readily went: but she hardly liked to speak to Roger when she
saw him. He was watching, with a sulky air, what Ailwin was doing, as
she bent over the mattress. His eyes were red with crying; but he did
not seem the more gentle for that. When Mildred had given her message,
he moved as if he thought it a great trouble to go; but Mildred then
suspected what was indeed the truth,--that he was unhappy at the child's
death, and was ashamed of appearing so, and put on a gruff manner to
hide it. Seeing this, the little girl ran after him, as he sauntered
away, put her hand in his, and said,--

"Do help Oliver all you can. I know how he would have tried to help you
if George had been your little brother."

"'Tis all the same as if he had been," muttered Roger. "I'm sure I