For the Love of his Native Place returned to lay his Dust therein.
The Just Made Perfect.
“It would seem he did well, and rounded his labors to a goodly end, lying down among his kindred as a sheaf that is garnered in the autumn. He was fortunate.”
And Margaret spoke, in the thin, emotionless voice which those who are long in the graveyard use: “He was my brother.”
“Thy brother?” said Ambrose.
The Little One looked up and down the spiral with wide eyes. The other two looked past it into the deep white valley, where the river, covered with ice and snow, was marked only by the lines of skeleton willows and poplars. A night wind, listless but continual, stirred the evergreens. The moon swung low over the opposite hills, and for a moment slipped behind a cloud.
“Says it not so, 'For the Love of his Native Place'?” murmured Ambrose.
And as the moon came out, there leaned against the pedestal, pointing with a finger at the epitaph, one that seemed an old man, with bowed shoulders and keen, restless face, but in his manner cowed and weary.
“It is a lie,” he said slowly. “I hated it, Margaret. I came because Ellen Mercer called me.”
“Ellen isn't buried here.”