I was not altogether comfortable after this conversation. I had tried to be fair to the young man both in word and thought, but I could not relish the idea of my daughter falling in love with him, which looked likely enough, before I knew more about him, and found that _more_ good and hope-giving. There was but one rational thing left to do, and that was to cast my care on him that careth for us--on the Father who loved my child more than even I could love her--and loved the young man too, and regarded my anxiety, and would take its cause upon himself. After I had lifted up my heart to him I was at ease, read a canto of Dante’s _Paradise_, and then went to bed. The prematurity of a conversation with my wife, in which I found that she was very favourably impressed with Mr. Percivale, must be pardoned to the forecasting hearts of fathers and mothers. As I went out for my walk the next morning, I caught sight of the sexton, with whom as yet I had had but little communication, busily trimming some of the newer graves in the churchyard. I turned in through the nearer gate, which was fashioned like a lych-gate, with seats on the sides and a stone table in the centre, but had no roof. The one on the other side of the church was roofed, but probably they had found that here no roof could resist the sea-blasts in winter. The top of the wall where the roof should have rested, was simply covered with flat slates to protect it from the rain. “Good-morning, Coombes,” I said. He turned up a wizened, humorous old face, the very type of a gravedigger’s, and with one hand leaning on the edge of the green mound, upon which he had been cropping with a pair of shears the too long and too thin grass, touched his cap with the other, and bade me a cheerful good-morning in return. “You’re making things tidy,” I said. “It take time to make them all comfortable, you see, sir,” he returned, taking up his shears again and clipping away at the top and sides of the mound. “You mean the dead, Coombes?” “Yes, sir; to be sure, sir.” “You don’t think it makes much difference to their comfort, do you, whether the grass is one length or another upon their graves?” “Well no, sir. I don’t suppose it makes _much_ difference to them. But it look more comfortable, you know. And I like things to look comfortable. Don’t you, sir?” “To be sure I do, Coombes. And you are quite right. The resting-place of the body, although the person it belonged to be far away, should be respected.” “That’s what I think, though I don’t get no credit for it. I du believe the people hereabouts thinks me only a single hair better than a Jack Ketch. But I’m sure I du my best to make the poor things comfortable.” He seemed unable to rid his mind of the idea that the comfort of the departed was dependent upon his ministrations.