“But if He _should_ want me,” she would go on to say earnestly, “I want to lie down by the little girl in the garden. She wouldn’t be so lonesome then in dark nights, would she, if she had another little girl close by her?” And then she would go on and describe it to me in her own pretty language: How when the moon shone silver bright and the shadows lay long and white over the little girl’s grave like a big, lovin’ hand, it would cover ’em both, and how on warm, sunshiny mornin’s the birds would sing to both of ’em, and the roses and tall lilies bend down over both, and the rivulet would talk to ’em as it went dancin’ by, and— “Don’t talk so, darlin’,” I would say, “Grandma don’t love to hear you.” And then mebby she would see the shadow on my face, and she would put up her little hand in that tender caress that wuz better than kisses, lay it on my cheek, and brush my hair back, and then touch my cheek agin. And mebby the very next minute she would be a askin’ me some deep question about Jack the Giant Killer or the Sleepin’ Beauty. She had a very active mind, very. And she wuz a beautiful child. Josiah said, and said well, that she went fur beyend anything on the globe for beauty, and smartness, and goodness. And Josiah Allen is a excellent judge of children, excellent. But, as I wuz a sayin’, Snow loved to talk about the little girl who had been mistress of this pretty place so long ago. She talked about her a sight. And if she had her way she would always go there to play, by the little grave—carry her dollies down there—Samantha Maggie Tirzah Ann, and the hull caboodle of ’em—she had as many as fourteen of ’em, anyway—and her dolls’ cradles, and wagons, and everything. And she wuz never so happy as when she wuz settled down there in that corner. Wall, it wuz pleasant as it could be. How clost the little rivulet did seem to hold the child’s grave in its dimpled arm, and its song never said to me: “My arm is warm and faithful, and is reaching out and reaching out to fold it round another of the nearest ones and dearest, and guard it, hold it safely from danger and from trouble.” No, I never heard this in its song, and I never heard any undertone of pity for hearts that would break with a new grief. No, I only heard low murmurs of compassion in its liquid tones for the achin’ hearts that had bent over this one little grave long ago. But the trees always did seem to cast greener, softer shadows here, and the sunshine and moonlight to rest more lovingly on it than on any other spot in the hull grounds. And I didn’t wonder at all at little Snow’s fancy for it. Oh, what a judgment that child showed in everything—it was a sight!