whom_ the carved stones were erected!

Our village churchyards, lying away amid glorious trees, or tranquil
valleys, or sleeping on the sloping hills, where "birds sing, lambs
bleat, and ploughboys whistle,"--however picturesque they may appear in
the distance, have frequently the same uncared for aspect as those
within the city. We love the living, but we _seem_ to care little for
the dead. However much we may muse on crossing "the churchyard," or
indulge in poesy, where

"The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,"

our places of burial, with the exception of cemeteries, which are as yet
too new to show what they may become, bear but slight testimony to the
"love which lives forever." The contrast is humiliating when we visit
other lands, and mark the attention paid to graves of relatives and
friends. A certain sum is annually set apart by the peasants in many
districts of France, for visiting and decking the resting-places of
those whom Death has taken; the fresh garland is hung on the simple
cross, and the prayer earnestly repeated for the soul's peace; and these
tributes continue for years and years, long after the bitterness of
sorrow has passed away.

We have seen an aged woman, with white hair, strewing flowers on her
mother's grave, though forty years had passed since the separation of
the living from the dead; and once, attracted by the beauty of a girl
who had been decking, and then praying, beside a nameless grave, we
asked for whom she mourned--although the word "mourned" had little
association with her bright face and sunny smile.

She answered, none of her people slept there; she had nothing of herself
to do with graves; it was Marie's mother's grave, and Marie had gone far
away--to England. Marie was her friend, and she had promised her that
she would deck that grave, and pray beside it; and all for the love she
bore her friend. We asked if she was certain Marie would return:

"No, there was no certainty; but she would watch the grave, and deck it,
and say the prayers Marie would have said, all the same; she loved
Marie, and had promised her." There was something very tender in this
friendly fidelity, this tending the dead for the sake of the living--the
living, dead to her.

For ourselves, the place of tombs has rarely been one of sorrow; we have
loved to visit the last dwellings of those who have gone home before us.
We have thought of the enjoyment of re-union; and dwelt upon the delight
of