At last it wound around the foot of the hill, and we
couldn't see it any more; but I kept feeling so sorry for the poor
little wife and for the lonely husband in his new house."
Katharine paused, but there was no word spoken, so she went on,--
"A month later we spent Sunday there, on our way home. The snow
had all melted and, in the afternoon, I teased papa to walk up to
the cemetery with me. We remembered the name, so we could find the
grave easily enough. It was perfectly bare, without any grass on
it, but at the head was a rough little cross made of two boards
nailed together, with her name painted on it, in black letters
that were a little unsteady, as if somebody's hand shook when he
was making them; and at the foot of the cross lay one tiny bunch
of white immortelles, to show that she wasn't quite forgotten. But
when we turned to look at the view, it didn't seem sad, any more.
The little, low, dingy town lay below us, as if she had risen
above it, and all around us, the great, soft, kind mountains stood
up in the sun to guard her and watch over her, in her sleep. The
shabby cross and the little posy and the magnificent brown
mountains were all so much more kind and loving than our piles of
marble and fussy flowers arranged for show, that when I came down
the hill, I didn't feel sorry for her, any longer.
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