they could not attend to him until
the game was completed, when one of them sprang upon the vault and began to
count over his marbles, and the others sat down on a low monument to rest.

"Boys," said Mr. Weston, "I am very sorry to see you playing marbles in a
burial-ground. Don't you see all these graves around you?"

"We don't go on the dead people," said an honest-faced little fellow. "You
see the grass is wet there; we play here in the walk, where its nice and
dry."

"But you ought to play outside," said Mr. Weston. "This is too sacred a
place to be made the scene of your amusements."

"We don't hurt any body," said the largest boy. "When people are dead they
don't hear nothin; where's the harm?"

"Well," said Mr. Weston, "there's one thing certain, none of you have any
friends buried here. If you had, you would not treat them so unkindly."

"My mother is buried over yonder," said the boy on the vault; "and if I
thought there was any thing unkind in it, I would never come here to play
again."

"You are a good boy," said Mr. Weston. "I hope you will keep your word. If
you were buried there, I am sure your mother would be very sad and quiet by
your grave."

The boy drew the string to his bag, and walked off without looking back.

"I wish," said Mr. Weston, "you would all follow his example. We should
always be respectful in our conduct, when we are in a burial-ground."

As soon as they were gone, the boys laughed and marked out another game.

Mrs. Weston joined her party, and they went towards the new portion of the
cemetery that is so beautifully situated, near the river.

"I think," said Mr. Weston, "this scene should remind us of our
conversation this morning. If Washington be the meeting-place of all
living, it is the grand cemetery of the dead. Look around us here! We see
monuments to Senators and Members; graves of foreigners and strangers;
names of the great, the rich, the powerful, men of genius and ambition.
Strewed along are the poor, the lowly, the unlearned, the infant, and the
little child.

"Read the inscriptions--death has come at last, watched and waited for; or
he has come suddenly, unexpected, and undesired. There lies an author, a
bride, a statesman, side by side. A little farther off is that simple, but
beautiful monument."

They approached, and Alice read the line that was inscribed around a cross
sculptured in it, "Other refuge have I none!" Underneath was her name,
"Angeline."