pened on a smooth and
sloping lawn, which was adorned by most beautiful flowers. It led to a
small gate opening on a long, narrow lane, which led to the Vicarage,
leaving the little church and its picturesque burying-ground a little to
the right; the thick grove which surrounded it forming a leafy yet
impenetrable wall to one side of the garden. There were many very pretty
tombs in this churchyard; perhaps its beauty consisted in its extreme
neatness, and the flowers that the vicar, Mr. Myrvin, took so much
pleasure in carefully preserving. One lowly grave, beneath a large and
spreading yew, was never passed unnoticed. A plain marble stone denoted
that there lay one, who had once been the brightest amid the bright, the
brilliant star of a lordly circle. The name, her age, and two simple
verses were there inscribed; but around that humble grave there were
sweet flowers flourishing more luxuriantly than in any other part of
the churchyard; the climbing honeysuckle twined its odoriferous clusters
up the dark trunk of the storm-resisting yew. Roses of various kinds
intermingled with the lowly violet, the snowdrop, lily of the valley,
the drooping convolvulus, which, closing its petals for a time, is a fit
emblem of that sleep which, closing our eyes on earth, reopens them in
heaven, beneath the general warmth of the sun of righteousness. These
flowers were sacred in the eyes of the villagers, and their children
were charged not to despoil them; and too deep was their reverence for
their minister, and too sacred was that little spot of earth, even to
their uncultured eyes, for those commands ever to be disobeyed. But it
was not to Mr. Myrvin's care alone that part of the churchyard owed its
beauty. It had ever been distinguished from the rest by the flowers
around it; but it was only the last two years they had flourished so
luxuriantly; the hand of Lilla Grahame watered and tended them with
unceasing care. In the early morning or the calm twilight she was seen
beside the grave, and many might have believed that there reposed the
ashes of a near and dear relation, but it was not so. Lilla had never
seen and never known the lovely being whose last home she thus
affectionately tended. It was dear to her from its association with him
whom she loved, there her thoughts could wander to him; and surely the
love thus cherished beside the dead must have been purity itself.

It was the hour that Lilla usually sought the churchyard, bu