At the turning of one of the little avenues that “lead to the tomb,” making an easy path to the grave, I saw that a new head-stone had been erected, and it bore the name of one whom I had known in her childhood. She was beautiful—but more lovely in mind than person. She married early, and gave birth to an infant, and died—a short biography. She was not forgotten. The memorials testified to the yet existing memory of her husband—and a nurse leading a little child toward the mound signified that her virtues were to be kept in remembrance by the child she had borne. A little flower had sprung up on the very top of the grave. It had probably been planted in the autumn, but it was now beautiful in its solitude. Its colors were as rich as if the roots had struck down and drawn nutriment from the heart that mouldered below, and its odors were as rich as if they were imparted by the spirit that had gone upward. I know not when I have seen thus placed a more lovely flower; perhaps it owed a part of this estimate to its loneliness, a part to its connection with the beauty and purity of her over whom it expanded. The little child on leaning over the grave fell prostrate, and manifested no disposition to rise. After a few moments delay, I gently raised her in my arms, and placed her on her feet. She seemed not pleased at first with my interference. “It is my mamma’s grave,” said she, with much emphasis, “and she is down there now.” “But lying on that moist ground might expose you to take cold.” “Yet I love to throw myself there,” she said. “I must do it, for I loved her much.” I tried to persuade her to desist, but she stepped toward the grave with a view of repeating her fall. Her attendant stooped down, and said in a low voice, “But your dear mother would not be pleased to see you do wrong, even if it was in token of your love for her.” “Then I will not do it.” If there had been no good seed planted in the child’s heart, at least the soil had been beautifully prepared for the planting—what could have been better done than this reverence for the name and virtues of a mother, and this obedience to her supposed will? I had, I thought, lighted on another truly lovely spring flower. “Do you come often to visit your mother’s grave?” I asked of the little one. The child looked up as if the inquiry should be repeated. “We make frequent visits hither,” said the attendant. “We come almost daily in good weather.” “Oh, yes!” said the child, “we come every fine day to visit where mother lies—and I am not afraid.” “Why should you fear?” said I. The child looked confused at the question. “You will some day _meet_ your mother if you are constant in your love, and thus seek to do whatever your friends tell you she would have desired, and to avoid what she would not have approved.” “I will endeavor to do so—but—I shall not meet her—we are going to Europe again, and shall not return.” “To Europe—but, my child, God is everywhere.”