rated in the grave,
and intoxicates the lovers who wander in the solitude of the paths.
The dead, the old departed dead, longed for the bridal of Miette and
Silvere.

They were never afraid. The sympathy which seemed to hover around them
thrilled them and made them love the invisible beings whose soft touch
they often imagined they could feel, like a gentle flapping of wings.
Sometimes they were saddened by sweet melancholy, and could not
understand what the dead desired of them. They went on basking in their
innocent love, amidst this flood of sap, this abandoned cemetery, whose
rich soil teemed with life, and imperiously demanded their union. They
still remained ignorant of the meaning of the buzzing voices which they
heard ringing in their ears, the sudden glow which sent the blood flying
to their faces.

They often questioned each other about the remains which they
discovered. Miette, after a woman's fashion, was partial to lugubrious
subjects. At each new discovery she launched into endless suppositions.
If the bone were small, she spoke of some beautiful girl a prey to
consumption, or carried off by fever on the eve of her marriage; if the
bone were large, she pictured some big old man, a soldier or a judge,
some one who had inspired others with terror. For a long time the
tombstone particularly engaged their attention. One fine moonlight night
Miette distinguished some half-obliterated letters on one side of it,
and thereupon she made Silvere scrape the moss away with his knife. Then
they read the mutilated inscription: "Here lieth . . . Marie . . .
died . . ." And Miette, finding her own name on the stone, was quite
terror-stricken. Silvere called her a "big baby," but she could not
restrain her tears. She had received a stab in the heart, she said; she
would soon die, and that stone was meant for her. The young man himself
felt alarmed. However, he succeeded in shaming the child out of these
thoughts. What! she so courageous, to dream about such trifles! They
ended by laughing. Then they avoided speaking of it again. But in
melancholy moments, when the cloudy sky saddened the pathway, Miette
could not help thinking of that dead one, that unknown Marie, whose
tomb had so long facilitated their meetings. The poor girl's bones were
perhaps still lying there. And at this thought Miette one evening had a
strange whim, and asked Silvere to turn the stone over to see what might
be under it. He refused, as though it