Passing through this silent world, we find ourselves in a wide white street which runs through the Catholic cemetery from east to west, in the centre and at the highest point of which stands a gigantic black cross. Cedar and ash and willow trees are growing in picturesque masses; green shrubberies refresh the sight, and rich red and cream roses are blooming everywhere. The grave gardens here are laid out in various shapes and sizes--square, circular, triangular, &c.--like a geometrical puzzle spread over the ground. The simplest grave has a cross above it, sometimes of wood, of iron, or of stone; the symbol of Christianity, as though growing out from the hearts of the sleepers, is lifted on all sides. The sun is shining, the sweet air blowing, and a look of serene calm and most perfect peace is smiling everywhere. How the vexed and troubled folk, who wander here to get away from the busy, noisy world, must long to creep down under the roses and hide from this world’s noisy strife, and lie beside the sleeper under the sod, with hands crossed, eyes closed, at rest for ever more. Here is a grave covered with “forget-me-nots,” and a cry--a hard, cold cry--written in stone, craving to be “kept green in men’s memories;” as though the dead could hope to be remembered, when _we_ who are living have to lift up our voices and struggle to the front that we may not be forgotten even while we live! Tall costly shafts of granite, wreathed with everlasting flowers, prick the skies, and elaborate architectural designs are erected here and there; one has brass cannon at the gates and sabres crossed upon the threshold, pointing the way the sleeper took to his death. After wandering about for some time we sit down to rest under a cedar tree, luxuriating in the sweet scent and bright colour of the waving flowerbeds, quite alone, as we thought, till a voice rather suggestive of “beer and skittles” came out of the silence: “Nice weather, marm; things is sort o’ springin’ up everywheres, and some on ’em is full blowed, ain’t they?” I look up; the owner of the voice has evidently just sidled round from the other side of the tree. He is an elderly man, with a ragged beard and patched clothing--the forlorn and decaying remnants of military glory; his face has a sodden, dissipated look, and his eyes a weak gin-and-watery appearance, anything but prepossessing. He was not exactly a nice kind of human ghoul to meet in such a solitary spot. I answered with an assenting smile or some kind of commonplace cheap civility, which evidently satisfied him, for he edged a little nearer, adding philosophically-- “Yes, it takes a good deal o’ sunshine to set things a startin’ out; sometimes I think I’d as lief be lyin’ down there in the dark as starvin’ up here in the sunshine--leastways the sun don’t always shine, not on me. I’ve been a soldier, marm,” he added with a slightly Irish accent, “and done my duty on many a gory field, and--oh! a--ah!”