e buried
in it. Only three months before he was brought here, it struck him that
it was a very bad arrangement to have the churchyard round the church;
so, in order to carry out the law, which prescribes that burial grounds
should be removed a stated distance from human dwellings, he himself
gave this piece of land to the commune. We are burying a child, poor
little thing, in the new cemetery to-day, so we shall have begun by
laying innocence and virtue there. Can it be that death is after all
a reward? Did God mean it as a lesson for us when He took these two
perfect natures to Himself? When we have been tried and disciplined in
youth by pain, in later life by mental suffering, are we so much nearer
to Him? Look! there is the rustic monument which has been erected to his
memory."

Genestas saw a mound of earth about twenty feet high. It was bare as
yet, but dwellers in the district were already busily covering the
sloping sides with green turf. La Fosseuse, her face buried in her
hands, was sobbing bitterly; she was sitting on the pile of stones in
which they had planted a great wooden cross, made from the trunk of a
pine-tree, from which the bark had not been removed. The officer read
the inscription; the letters were large, and had been deeply cut in the
wood.

D. O. M.

HERE LIES

THE GOOD MONSIEUR BENASSIS

THE FATHER OF US ALL

PRAY FOR HIM.

"Was it you, sir," asked Genestas, "who----?"

"No," answered the cure; "it is simply what is said everywhere, from
the heights up there above us down to Grenoble, so the words have been
carved here."

Genestas remained silent for a few moments. Then he moved from where he
stood and came nearer to La Fosseuse, who did not hear him, and spoke
again to the cure.

"As soon as I have my pension," he said, "I will come to finish my days
here among you."

ADDENDUM

The following personage appears in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Murat, Joachim, Prince
The Vendetta
The Gondreville Mystery
Colonel Chabert
Domestic Peace

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