rded him as old-fashioned and
unpractical. They sat conscience-stricken and abashed now; the tears of
these bereaved black people smote their philosophy and their worldliness,
and showed them how shallow they were. Tears answered to tears, and the
college professors and the negro slaves wept together.

"They have nobody left to love them now," exclaimed one of the youngest
and hitherto most cynical of Parson Dorrance's colleagues, as he stood
watching the grief-stricken creatures.

While the procession formed to bear the body to the grave, the blacks
stood in a group on the church-steps, watching it. After the last carriage
had fallen into line, they hurried down and followed on in the storm. In
vain some kindly persons tried to dissuade them. It was two miles to the
cemetery, two miles farther away from their homes; but they repelled all
suggestions of the exposure with indignant looks, and pressed on. When the
coffin was lowered into the grave, they pushed timidly forward, and began
to throw in their green boughs and bunches of ferns. Every one else
stepped back respectfully as soon as their intention was discovered, and
in a moment they had formed in solid ranks close about the grave, each one
casting in his green palm of crown and remembrance,--a body-guard such as
no emperor ever had to stand around him in his grave.

On the day after Mercy's arrival in town, Stephen had called to see her.
She had sent down to him a note with these words:--

"I cannot see you, dear Stephen, until after all is over. The funeral will
be to-morrow. Come the next morning, as early as you like."

The hours had seemed bitterly long to Stephen. He had watched Mercy at the
funeral; and, when he saw her face bowed in her hands, and felt rather
than saw that she was sobbing, he was stung by a new sense of loss and
wrong that he had no right to be by her side and comfort her. He forgot
for the time, in the sight of her grief, all the unhappiness of their
relation for the past few months. He had unconsciously felt all along
that, if he could but once look in her eyes, all would be well. How
could he help feeling so, when he recalled the expression of childlike
trust and devotion which her sweet face always wore when she lifted it to
his? And now, as his eyes dwelt lingeringly and fondly on every line of
her bowed form, he had but one thought, but one consciousness,--his desire
to throw his arms about her, and exclaim, "O Mercy, are you not