She, gazing upon the finished statue and seeing only her sister in it, said: "I think it beautiful."
And Roger, deeply wrapt in worship of the sculptured face, said: "Thee has done wonders. The sweet smile of my beloved is fixed in marble forever, and my heart is filled with gratitude to thee." All his training was against the graven art, but he gave his hand to the sculptor. "Friend Conrad, I thank thee; thee has made me very happy. Truly thee has caused this cold marble to assume the very image of my Rachel."
As Roger turned again to gaze upon the statue Conrad touched Ruth upon the arm and drew her aside, leaving the bereaved man alone with his memories.
It was all so wonderful, so moving to Roger that he remained before it a long time, absorbed, marveling, exultant. Safe against the years he seemed now, and yet, as he gazed, his pleasure grew into a pain, so vividly did the chiseled stone bring back the grace he had known. Close upon the exultant thought: "Now she can never fade from my memory," came the reflection that his little son would never know how like to his mother this image was. "He will know only the cold marble—his mother will not even be a memory."
One sixth day morning in the eighth month word was brought to Nicholas Asche, leader of the Meeting, that Roger Barnes was about to erect a graven image among the low headstones of the burial grounds, and in amazement and indignation the old man hastened that way.
He found his two sons and several others of the congregation already gathered, gazing with surprise and a touch of awe upon the statue which Conrad and young Bailey had already securely based beneath a graceful young oak in the very centre of his family plot. Gleaming, life-size, it rose above the modest records of the other graves.
As the stern old elder rode up, the throng of onlookers meekly gave way for him. He halted only when he had come so near the offending monument that he could touch it. For a full minute he regarded it with eyes whose anger lit the shadow of his broad-brim, glaring with ever-increasing resentment as he came fully to realize what it meant to have a tall statue thus set up to dwarf the lowly records of its neighbors. It seemed at once impious and rebellious.
Harshly he broke forth: "What has come to thee, Roger Barnes, that thee has broken all the rules of the Discipline relative to burial? Thee well knows our laws. No one could convey a greater insult to the elders, to the dead beneath these other stones, than thee has done by this act. Lay that impious object low or I will fetch thee before the Meeting."
"I will not," replied the young man. "I was even thinking of exalting it still more by putting beneath it another foot of granite block."
"Thee knows full well that by regulation no gravestone can be more than three hands high," Nicholas stormed.