Her grave, the housekeeper told me, was only a little way off from her home—beside the grave of a brother who died long years before. I went there that evening. The mound was high and fresh. The sods had not closed together, and the dry leaves caught in the crevices and gave a ragged and a terrible look to the grave. The next day I laid them all smooth—as we had once laid them on the grave of Tray; I clipped the long grass, and set a tuft of blue violets at the foot, and watered it all with—tears. The homestead, the trees, the fields, the meadows, in the windy November, looked dismally. I could not like them again—I liked nothing but the little mound that I had dressed over Bella’s grave. There she sleeps now—the sleep of death! [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] SCHOOL REVISITED THE old school was there still—with the high cupola upon it, and the long galleries, with the sleeping rooms opening out on either side, and the corner one, where I slept. But the boys are not there, nor the old teachers. They have plowed up the play-ground to plant corn, and the apple tree with the low limb, that made our gymnasium, is cut down. I was there only a little time ago. It was on a Sunday. One of the old houses of the village had been fashioned into a tavern, and it was there I stopped. But I strolled by the old one, and looked into the bar-room, where I used to gaze with wonder upon the enormous pictures of wild animals which heralded some coming menagerie. There was just such a picture hanging still, and two or three advertisements of sheriffs, and a little bill of a “horse stolen,” and—as I thought—the same brown pitcher on the edge of the bar. I was sure it was the same great wood-box that stood by the fireplace, and the same whip and greatcoat hung in the corner. I was not in so gay costume as I once thought I would be wearing when a man; I had nothing better than a rusty shooting jacket; but even with this I was determined to have a look about the church, and see if I could trace any of the faces of the old times. They had sadly altered the building; they had cut out its long galleries and its old-fashioned square pews, and filled it with narrow boxes, as they do in the city. The pulpit was not so high or grand, and it was covered over with the work of the cabinet-makers. I missed, too, the old preacher, whom we all feared so much, and in place of him was a jaunty-looking man, whom I thought I would not be at all afraid to speak to, or, if need be, to slap on the shoulder. And when I did meet him after church, I looked him in the eye as boldly as a lion—what a change was that from the school days!