"I'm a fool ever to have come," she said; "only upset me--and you don't want no more upsettin' than you get, that's certain. Good-bye, and thank you for the drink--it lusened my tongue praaper, didn't it?" She gave me a look--not as a professional--but a human, puzzled look. "I told you my baby was a laughin' little thing. I'm glad she's still like that. I'm glad I've seen her." Her lips quivered for a second; then, with a faked jauntiness, she nodded. "So long!" and passed through the gate down into the lane. I sat there in the snow and sunlight some minutes after she was gone. Then, getting up, I went and stood by the burning furze. The blowing flames and the blue smoke were alive and beautiful; but behind them they were leaving blackened skeleton twigs. "Yes," I thought, "but in a week or two the little green grass-shoots will be pushing up underneath into the sun. So the world goes! Out of destruction! It's a strange thing!" 1916. V TWO LOOKS The old Director of the 'Yew Trees' Cemetery walked slowly across from his house, to see that all was ready. He had seen pass into the square of earth committed to his charge so many to whom he had been in the habit of nodding, so many whose faces even he had not known. To him it was the everyday event; yet this funeral, one more in the countless tale, disturbed him--a sharp reminder of the passage of time. For twenty years had gone by since the death of Septimus Godwin, the cynical, romantic doctor who had been his greatest friend; by whose cleverness all had sworn, of whose powers of fascination all had gossiped! And now they were burying his son! He had not seen the widow since, for she had left the town at once; but he recollected her distinctly, a tall, dark woman with bright brown eyes, much younger than her husband, and only married to him eighteen months before he died. He remembered her slim figure standing by the grave, at that long-past funeral, and the look on her face which had puzzled him so terribly--a look of--a most peculiar look! He thought of it even now, walking along the narrow path towards his old friend's grave--the handsomest in the cemetery, commanding from the topmost point the whitened slope and river that lay beyond. He came to its little private garden. Spring flowers were blossoming; the railings had been freshly painted; and by the door of the grave wreaths awaited the new arrival. All was in order. The old Director opened the mausoleum with his key. Below, seen through a thick glass floor, lay the shining coffin of the father; beneath, on the lower tier, would rest the coffin of the son. A gentle voice, close behind him, said: "Can you tell me, sir, what they are doing to my old doctor's grave?" The old Director turned, and saw before him a lady well past middle age. He did not know her face, but it was pleasant, with faded rose-leaf cheeks, and silvered hair under a shady hat. "Madam, there is a funeral here this afternoon."