But anyway he wuz bound they should get there some way. And I had a feelin’, as I looked at him, that the dark waves in front of him would part some way, and he would pass over into the light, he and his race. Wall, jest about as he finished up his idees to me, Genieve come in lookin’ as pretty as a pink, and I got up and carried the thread into the house, willin’ to leave ’em alone for a little while, and I spoze—I spoze they wuz willin’ to have me go. Yes, I hadn’t forgot what courtship wuz, when Josiah Allen come over to see me, sheepish but affectionate. And I remember well how he would brighten up when Mother Smith would be obleeged to go out to get supper, or to strain the milk, or sunthin’ or other. No, I hain’t forgot it, and most probable never shall. [Illustration: “UNDER THE WHITE CROSS.”] CHAPTER X. LITTLE Snow wuz always askin’ about the little girl who wuz a lyin’ under the white cross and the rose-trees down in the corner of the garden at Belle Fanchon. And she would ask me sights of questions about her. She would ask “if Belle Fanchon used to walk about and run as she did through the paths of the old garden, and pick the roses, and stand under the orange-trees, and hear the birds sing, and the laugh of the brook as it wound along amongst the flowers?” And I would say, “Yes, I spoze so.” And then she would say, “What made her leave it all and go and lie down there under the grass?” And I would say, “The Lord wanted her.” And she would say, “Will He want me?” And I would hold her clost to my heart, and say, “Oh, no, darlin’, Grandma hopes not, not for a long, long time, not till these old eyes are closed many and many a year,” I would say. “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.