"Lone linden," mused Clara; and though the words were spoken low, the old man seemed to have read it from her lips.
"The other people have called it so, and it seems right. The only one left," he said, softly passing his hand over the bark of the tree. "You would not think how many they were at one time; but they are all dead and gone. My dear ones all lie buried here."
"Here?" echoed Clara, touching the mound.
"No, not the bodies, you know; es ist nur die Erinnerung," he turned to Christine. She bowed her head silently, and with the deep "verstandnissvolle" look of her honest eyes she had won the old man's confidence forever.
They turned back to the more cheerful part of the garden, trying to shake off the gloom the linden with its deep shadow had thrown on them, and Clara railed at her friend for looking solemn as an owl. "Not a line of poetry have you quoted to-day—not a note have you sung."
At the same time the old man was saying to Mrs. Wardor, "See, lady, all these lilies, white as snow. At home, in Germany, they were my mother's pet flowers, and I am keeping these to be planted on my grave." And Christine stooping to break three of them, chanted dolefully—
"'Drei Lilien, drei Lilien—
Die pflanzt mir auf mein Grab.'"
"There"—she turned to Clara—"that's music for you."
Right here, let me confide to the reader Christine's great failing—the weak point in this strong nature. She had a queer habit of keeping up a sort of running comment on any conversation that took place in her presence—any occurrence that came under her observation; comment in the shape of bits of poetry or song, that she sang softly to herself. But she could not sing—and that was the great failing. Think of a music-teacher who could not, if life depended on it, sing a dozen notes in the same key, but would drop lower and lower, "till her voice fell clear into the cellar"—according to the girl's own statement.