a dark ground, that beneath were deposited
the remains of Amelia, the beloved wife of Amos Barton, who died in the
thirty-fifth year of her age, leaving a husband and six children to
lament her loss. The final words of the inscription were, 'Thy will be
done.'

The husband was now advancing towards the dear mound from which he was so
soon to be parted, perhaps for ever. He stood a few minutes reading over
and over again the words on the tombstone, as if to assure himself that
all the happy and unhappy past was a reality. For love is frightened at
the intervals of insensibility and callousness that encroach by little
and little on the dominion of grief, and it makes efforts to recall the
keenness of the first anguish.

Gradually, as his eye dwelt on the words, 'Amelia, the beloved wife,' the
waves of feeling swelled within his soul, and he threw himself on the
grave, clasping it with his arms, and kissing the cold turf.

'Milly, Milly, dost thou hear me? I didn't love thee enough--I wasn't
tender enough to thee--but I think of it all now.'

The sobs came and choked his utterance, and the warm tears fell.

CONCLUSION

Only once again in his life has Amos Barton visited Milly's grave. It was
in the calm and softened light of an autumnal afternoon, and he was not
alone. He held on his arm a young woman, with a sweet, grave face, which
strongly recalled the expression of Mrs. Barton's, but was less lovely in
form and colour. She was about thirty, but there were some premature
lines round her mouth and eyes, which told of early anxiety.

Amos himself was much changed. His thin circlet of hair was nearly white,
and his walk was no longer firm and upright. But his glance was calm, and
even cheerful, and his neat linen told of a woman's care. Milly did not
take all her love from the earth when she died. She had left some of it
in Patty's heart.

All the other children were now grown up, and had gone their several
ways. Dickey, you will be glad to hear, had shown remarkable talents as
an engineer. His cheeks are still ruddy, in spite of mixed mathematics,
and his eyes are still large and blue; but in other respects his person
would present no marks of identification for his friend Mrs. Hackit, if
she were to see him; especially now that her eyes must be grown very dim,
with the wear of more than twenty additional years. He is nearly six feet
high, and has a proportionately broad chest; he wears spectacles, and
r