ded, always with his smile.

But how was I to agree aloud with what his silent hand had expressed?
Those inaudible taps on the stone spoke clearly enough; they said: "Here
lies Kings Port, here lives Kings Port. Outside of this is our true
death, on the vacant wharves, in the empty streets. All that we have
left is the immortality which these historic names have won." How could
I tell him that I thought so, too? Nor was I as sure of it then as he
was. And besides, this was a young man whose spirit was almost surely,
in suffering; ill fortune both material and of the heart, I seemed to
suspect, had made him wounded and bitter in these immediate days; and
the very suppression he was exercising hurt him the more deeply. So I
replied, honestly, as he had asked: "I hope you are mistaken."

"That's because you haven't been here long enough," he declared.

Over us, gently, from somewhere across the gardens and the walls, came
a noiseless water breeze, to which the roses moved and nodded among the
tombs. They gave him a fanciful thought. "Look at them! They belong to
us, and they know it. They're saying, 'Yes; yes; yes,' all day long. I
don't know why on earth I'm talking in this way to you!" he broke off
with vivacity. "But you made me laugh so."

VI: In the Churchyard

"Then it was a good laugh, indeed!" I cried heartily.

"Oh, don't let's go back to our fine manners!" he begged comically.
"We've satisfied each other that we have them! I feel so lonely; and my
aunt just now--well, never mind about that. But you really must excuse
us about Miss Beaufain, and all that sort of thing. I see it, because
I'm of the new generation, since the war, and--well, I've been to other
places, too. But Aunt Eliza, and all of them, you know, can't see it.
And I wouldn't have them, either! So I don't ever attempt to explain
to them that the world has to go on. They'd say, 'We don't see the
necessity!' When slavery stopped, they stopped, you see, just like a
clock. Their hand points to 1865--it has never moved a minute since. And
some day"--his voice grew suddenly tender--"they'll go, one by one, to
join the still older ones. And I shall miss them very much."

For a moment I did not speak, but watched the roses nodding and moving.
Then I said: "May I say that I shall miss them, too?"

He looked at me. "Miss our old Kings Port people?" He didn't invite
outsiders to do that!

"Don't you see how it is?" I murmured. "It was the same t