"He looks won'erful white."
"That's because of the twilight. You fancy he is white. He has the most beautiful little color in his lips and cheeks, just like the crimson on a daisy."
"Well, come along, and choose a place. It'll save comin' again. I'll let you see where Jonas lies. And if you want to put up a monument, that's half-a-guinea to the passon and half-a-crown to me. There, do you see that new grave? I've bound it down wi' withies, and laid the turf nice over it. It's fine in the sun, and a healthy situation," continued the sexton, pointing to a new grave. "This bit of ground is pretty nigh taken up wi' the folks of the Punch-Bowl, the Boxalls, and the Nashes, and the Snellings, and the Kinks, and the Rocliffes. We let 'em lie to themselves when dead, as they kep' to theirselves when livin'. Where would you like to lie, you and the baby—you may just as well choose now—it may save trouble. I'm gettin' old, and I don't go about more than I can help.
"If anything were to happen, Mr. Linegar, then let us be laid—me and my darling—on the other side of the church, where my father's grave is."
"That's the north side—never gets no sun. I don't reckon it over healthy."
"I would rather lie there. If it gets no sun on that side, my poor babe and I have been in shade all our lives, and so it fits us best to be on the north side."
"Well, there's no accountin for tastes," said the sexton. "But I've hear you be a little troubled in the intellecks."
"Is it strange," answered Mehetabel, "that one should wish to be laid beside a father—my poor father, who is alone?"
"Come, come," said the old man, "it is time for me to lock up the churchyard gate. I only left it open because I had been doing up Jonas Kink's grave with withies."
He made Mehetabel precede him down the path, saw her through the gate, and then fastened that with a padlock.