“Now I have caught the culprit,” said a voice behind her, and Carolyn May looked up to see the Reverend Afton Driggs smiling down at her. “It had begun to puzzle me why this little patch of our old graveyard looked so much better than the rest. I might have known you had something to do with it,” went on the minister. Carolyn May sighed. “I just wish I could clean up all this cemetery. I think, maybe, it would please them.” “Please whom?” asked the minister rather startled. “Why, the folks that are buried here! I suppose they must know about it. Their spirits, of course—the parts of ’em that keep on living. I should think it would please ’em if their graves were kept neat.” Mr. Driggs looked thoughtfully about the untidy graveyard. “It would seem as though ‘out of sight is out of mind’ in many cases of old graveyards, Carolyn May. Yes, you are right. Families move away or die out entirely. The burial lots are left to the mercy of strangers. “‘Brother, keep my memory green!’ And we forget the friend who has really meant much to us—or, perhaps, we beflower the grave once a year. But that does not keep his memory green; it is only a salve to our own consciences. Perhaps Memorial Day is of doubtful value, after all.” Probably Carolyn May had not heard the clergyman’s comment. Surely, she had not understood it. But she said now: “Yes. There’s Miss Wade—over yonder.” “Eh?” exclaimed the minister, turning quickly, expecting to see the person of whom Carolyn May spoke. “There’s who?” “Miss Wade. Or, I s’pose she was a miss. She’s not a ‘spouse,’ or a ‘beloved relict,’ or ‘wife of the above.’ So, I guess, she was a maiden lady.” “Oh!” ejaculated the clergyman. “That old stone in the corner?” “Yes, sir. That leany one. You know it says: ‘Lydia Wade. Died of smallpox. _Anno Domini_, 1762.’ “I know what _anno Domini_ means. It’s after the birth of Christ. I thought, at first, it was the name of somebody else buried in the same grave—and that he had smallpox, too. “It must be dreadful to have smallpox and be buried off in one corner of the graveyard by one’s self. Do you s’pose they did that to Miss Wade ’cause they were ’fraid of other folks here catching it?” “It might be, my dear,” said the clergyman. “But she was buried a long, long time ago. Probably before there was any church here.” “Well, I guess Miss Wade was buried—poor thing!—so long ago that there isn’t any danger of catching the smallpox from her,” sighed the little girl, yet with relief in her tone. “Anyway, I’m not afraid, for I’ve been vaccernated, and it _took_!” The Reverend Afton Driggs thought this a rather gruesome subject for Carolyn May; but, with the latter, everything worth talking about at all could be given a cheerful atmosphere. She got to her feet with a sigh of satisfaction, and Prince awakened out of his doze in the shelter of the wall.