Strolling through a cemetery, I beheld within one of the enclosures a widow who had buried her only child there, some two years before. I accosted her, and tendered my assistance. “Thank you,” she replied, “my task is done. I have been pulling up the nettles and thistles that have overgrown little Willie’s grave, and have planted mnemonies, heart’s ease, and early spring flowers in their place, as more fitting emblems of my child; and though they may fail to delight him, they will remind me that there is a spring time even in the grave, and that Willie will not be neglected by _Him_ who bids these simple flowers revive. But is it not strange how rank nettles and all offensive weeds grow over the human grave—even a child’s grave?” “I remember you mourned grievously at losing him, but trust time has assuaged affliction.” “Its poignancy is blunted, but memory is constantly hovering around my child. Duty and reason have taught me resignation; still I seldom behold a boy of his age, but fancy pictures to me how he would have appeared in the various stages of his progress toward manhood. And then again I see him like his father—and myself a proud and happy mother in old age. True, you may call it an idle, baseless dream; and so it is, but I cannot help indulging in it.” “Dream on! the best of life is a dream.” We walked a few steps, and paused before an inclosure where reposed the remains of a worthy man, with nothing more than his unobtrusive name inscribed upon a marble slab to designate his resting-place. He was respected for his integrity and energy; beloved for his utility and benevolence. Here was no lying inscription, making the grave gorgeous, as if monumental mendacity might deceive Divinity. His record was elsewhere, traced by unseen fingers. “There are no nettles on that good man’s grave,” said the widow. “I knew him well; weeds would wither there; nothing but flowers should cover his ashes.” A few young men at the time were idly passing. They paused, when one tearing a weed from the pathway, hurled it among the flowers, exclaiming, “Let him rot there with weeds for his covering.” The slumbering dust thus spurned had long sustained the ingrate who now voided his venom upon the benefactor who had fed him until there was no longer faith in hope. The widow sighed; “And this is on the grave of the good and just!” “Had Willie lived, he might have been such a man, and such would have been his harvest.”