“Yes; the Love-lies-bleedin’ I set on Mary’s grave the night after she wor laid in it. Ye remember my tellin’ you, mother?”
“Yes—yes; I do.”
“Well, it ain’t there now.”
“Ye ha’ been into the chapel buryin’ groun’ then?”
“I have.”
“But what made ye go there, Jack?”
“Well, mother; passin’ the place, I took a notion to go in—a sort o’ sudden inclinashun, I couldn’t resist. I thought that kneelin’ beside her grave, an’ sayin’ a prayer might do somethin’ to lift the weight off o’ my heart. It would a done that, no doubt, but for findin’ the flower warn’t there. Fact, it had a good deal relieved me, till I discovered it wor gone.”
“But how gone? Ha’ the thing been cut off, or pulled up?”
“Clear plucked out by the roots. Not a vestige o’ it left!”
“Maybe ’twer the sheep or goats. They often get into a graveyard; and if I beant mistook I’ve seen some in that o’ the Ferry Chapel. They may have ate it up?”