opinion. On these occasions ostensibly Morris went to talk about parish
affairs, and, indeed, to a certain extent he did talk about them. For
instance, Stella who had been so fond of music, once described to him
the organ which she would like to have in the fine old parish church
of Monksland. Now that renovated instrument stood there, and was the
admiration of the country-side, as it well might be in view of the fact
that it had cost over four thousand pounds.

Again, Mr. Fregelius wished to erect a monument to his daughter, which,
as her body never had been found, could properly be placed in the
chancel of the church. Morris entered heartily into the idea and
undertook to spend the hundred pounds which the old gentleman had saved
for this purpose on his account and to the best advantage. In affect he
did spend it to excellent advantage, as Mr. Fregelius admitted when the
monument arrived.

It was a lovely thing, executed by one of the first sculptors of the
day, in white marble upon a black stone bed, and represented the mortal
shape of Stella. There she lay to the very life, wrapped in a white
robe, portrayed as a sleeper awakening from the last sleep of death, her
eyes wide and wondering, and on her face that rapt look which Morris had
caught in his sketch of her, singing in the chapel. At the edge of the
base of this remarkable effigy, set flush on the black marble in letters
of plain copper was her name--Stella Fregelius--with the date of her
death. On one side appeared the text that she had quoted, "O death,
where is thy sting?" and on the other its continuation, "O grave, where
is thy victory?" and at the foot part of a verse from the forty-second
psalm: "Deep calleth unto deep. . . . All Thy waves and storms have gone
over me."

Like the organ, this monument, which stood in the chancel, was much
admired by everybody, except Mary, who found it rather theatrical;
and, indeed, when nobody was looking, surveyed it with a gloomy and a
doubtful eye.

That Morris had something to do with the thing she was quite certain,
since she knew well that Mr. Fregelius would never have invented any
memorial so beautiful and full of symbolism; also she doubted his
ability to pay for a piece of statuary which must have cost many
hundreds of pounds. A third reason, which seemed to her conclusive,
was that the face on the statue was the very face of Morris's drawing,
although, of course, it was possible that Mr. Fregelius might