“James A. Lyle, born in Alnwick, England, 18—. Died June —, 18—, aged 23 years. Honor to the dead who died to save another’s life,” she read aloud, kneeling on the grass before the monument which marked his resting-place.
“Oh, how nice that is. ‘Honor to the dead who died to save another’s life,’ and that other was Mr. Godfrey,” she said. “And Colonel Schuyler put it here. I like him now better than I did. I thought he was proud and cold, but there must be good in him. Why, it’s a splendid stone, and must have cost as much as,—as much as forty pounds.”
Her income was her maximum for an unheard-of sum, and she stood gazing admiringly at the stone, while her busy tongue went on.
“And this is a pretty yard, with all those old Schuylers buried here. I mean, old really, you know. I don’t say it for bad nicknames. They were all old. ‘Emily, beloved wife of Colonel Howard Schuyler, aged 36,’ is the youngest of them all, and she was awful old. That must be Colonel Schuyler’s first wife, Mr. Godfrey’s mother. Was she as pretty, I wonder, as the new lady is? No, you have not kept the grave up nice; that girl would feel badly if she saw it. Let’s go straight to work and pull up the nasty weeds first; and look, here’s a clump of lovely forget-me-nots down in the grass, and sweet English violets.”
She talked so fast and went so rapidly from one thing to another that I had no chance to say a word, but stood watching her silently as she worked with a will, pulling up the weeds and digging about the flowers which had been making a faint struggle for life in the grass which impeded their growth. Whether she was working for the sake of the young girl Heloise, or because it was Godfrey’s life which had been saved by the necessity for that grave, I could not tell. She talked of both, and when her task was done, and flushed and heated with exercise, she sat down to rest, she said:
“There, Miss Heloise Fordham will feel better now, I hope, and I wouldn’t wonder if Mr. Godfrey liked me to be kind to the man who saved his life. Was she very pretty, Miss Armstrong?”
I knew she meant Heloise, although her last remark had been of Godfrey, and I replied:
“Yes, very pretty. Do you know you look a little like her, only your hair is auburn, and hers was golden brown, while your eyes are blue and hers were a brownish gray.”
“Do I? Am I like her? Am I pretty? Mr. Godfrey said I was,” she exclaimed, her face lighting up with a glow which made her, as I thought, the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.
“You have spoken of Mr. Godfrey several times,” I said. “Where did you know him?”