It is looking very pleasant there now. The turf has grown fine and smooth. The low arbor-vitæ hedge and knots of Norway spruce, that father planted long ago for mother, drop cool, green shadows that stir with the wind. My English ivy has crept about and about the cross. Roy used to say that he should fancy a cross to mark the spot where he might lie; I think he would like this pure, unveined marble. May-flowers cover the grave now, and steal out among the clover-leaves with a flush like sunrise. By and by there will be roses, and, in August, August’s own white lilies.
We went silently over, and sat silently down on the grass, the field-path stretching away to the little church behind us, and beyond, in front, the slope, the flats, the river, the hills cut in purple distance melting far into the east. The air was thick with perfume. Golden bees hung giddily over the blush in the grass. In the low branches that swept the grave a little bird had built her nest.
Aunt Winifred did not speak to me for a time, nor watch my face. Presently she laid her hand upon my lap, and I put mine into it.
“It is very pleasant here,” she said then, in her very pleasant voice.
“I meant that it should be,” I answered, trying not to let her see my lips quiver. “At least it must not look neglected. I don’t suppose it makes any difference to him.”
“I do not feel sure of that.”
“I do not feel sure that anything he has left makes no ‘difference’ to him.”
“But I don’t understand. He is in heaven. He would be too happy to care for anything that is going on in this woful world.”
“Perhaps that is so,” she said, smiling a sweet contradiction to her words, “but I don’t believe it.”