The summer passed and the singing birds grew silent in the woods and fields. The grain stood golden, and the ripe fruit dropped from vine and tree. October came, with her frosty nights and smoky days. She dashed the hill-sides with her red and yellow, and then she held her veil of mist for the sun's rays to shine through, lest the gorgeous coloring should daze the eyes of men. On one of these most beautiful autumnal days, Ralph and his mother went driving through the country roads, gathering golden-rod and purple aster and the fleecy immortelle. When they returned they passed through the cemetery gates and drove to one spot where art and nature had combined to make pleasant to the living eye the resting-places of the dead, and they laid their offering of fresh wild-flowers upon the grave of one who had nobly lived and had not ignobly died. Above the mound, a block of rugged granite rose, bearing on its face the name and age and day of death of William Buckley, and also this inscription:-- "Having finished his work, by the will of God he fell asleep." As they drove back toward the glowing west, toward the pink clouds that lay above the mountain-tops behind which the sun had just now disappeared, toward the bustling city and the dear, dear home, Ralph lifted up his face and kissed his mother on her lips. But he did not speak; the happiness and peace within him were too great for words.