"This is always the way," he muttered, "when the friends are allowed to come here, we are sure of trouble!"
"Is there no other place? oh, do not put her with all them!"
So pleaded Mary, rising to her feet, and taking hold of the old man's garments.
"In all this island is there no room where one person can be buried alone?"
"If you have a dollar to pay for the trouble—yes," answered the old man, softened by her distress.
"A dollar!"
The child turned away in utter despondency. Where on the wide earth was she to find a dollar? Isabel looked at her with mournful solicitude. A dollar! she would have given her young life for that little sum of money; but, alas! even her life would not procure so much.
The old man stood gazing upon those little pale faces, the one so beautiful, the other vivid and wild with intense feeling. His heart was touched, and going back to the trench he took up his spade.
"Come and point out the place where you would like to have her buried, and I will do the work for nothing," he said; "as likely as not my little grandchildren will some day be crying over me for want of a dollar."
The old man seemed like an angel to those little girls. They could not speak from fullness of gratitude, but followed the grave digger back towards the orchard. Here the earth was broken, and rendered uneven by some fifty or sixty hillocks; some marked by a single pine board, others without even this frail memorial by which the death-couch might be traced.