Lilly O'Connell's death made a deep impression in the village. That which her life, with all its pain and humiliation and loneliness, its heroic struggles, its quiet, hard-won victories, had failed to do, the simple story of her death accomplished. It was made the subject of at least two eloquent discourses, and for a time her name was on every tongue. But it was only for a time, for when, in the course of years, the graves in the pasture were opened, and the poor remains of mortality removed by surviving friends to sacred ground, her grave remained undisturbed.
It was not forgotten, however. One day in June, when the happy, teeming earth was at her fairest, Dr. Horton drove out of the village, and turning into the grass-grown, untraversed road, went on to the scene of the past winter's tragedy of suffering and death. The old house was no longer in existence. By consent of the owner (whose whereabouts had been discovered), and by order of the selectmen of the town, it had been burned to the ground. Where it had stood, two crumbling chimneys rose from the mass of blackened bricks and charred timbers which filled the cellar, the whole draped and matted with luxuriant woodbine and clinging shrubs. Birds brooded over their nests in every nook and cranny of the ruin, and red roses flaunted in the sunshine and sprinkled the gray door-stone with splashes of color. The air was as sweet about it, the sky as blue above it, as if crime and plague were things which had no existence.
Dr. Horton left his horse to browse on the tender leaves of the young birches which grew along the wall, and went down into the pasture. The sod above the graves was green, and starred with small white flowers. There were fifteen graves in all, distinguished only by a number rudely cut upon rough stakes driven into the ground at their heads.
He went slowly among them until he came to one a little apart from the others, in the shadow of the woods which bordered the field. A slender young aspen grew beside it, its quivering leaves shining in the sun. Soft winds blew out from the fragrant woods, and far off in their green depths echoed the exquisite, melancholy note of the wood-thrush. At the foot of the grave, where the grass, nourished by some hidden spring, grew long and lush, a single tiger-lily spread its glowing chalice.
The young man stood there with uncovered head a long, long time. Then, laying his hand reverently upon the sod for one instant, he went away.
Several years have passed since these events. Dr. Horton is still unmarried. This is a source of great regret in the community with which he has become so closely allied, and by which he is held in universal regard and honor. There are some prematurely whitened locks upon his temples, and two or three fine straight lines just above his warm, steadfast eyes, but he is neither a morose nor a melancholy man, and there are those who confidently hope that the many untenanted rooms in the old homestead may yet open to the sunshine of a wife's smile, and echo to the music of childish voices.
It was two years before he met Miss Fairfield, she having spent that time in Europe with her mother and "Aunt Kitty." It was a chance meeting, upon Tremont Street, in Boston. He was in the act of leaving a store as she entered, accompanied by her mother. He recognized them with a friendly and courteous bow, and passed on.
Miss Fairfield leaned against the counter with a face white as snow.
"He is not—changed—so very much," she whispered to her mother.
Mrs. Fairfield, who had had her own ideas all along, kept a discreet silence.