how grateful to my lungs was
the outside air, so sweet, so fresh, so clean! I loved the friendly
trees waving in the good wind, I blessed the friendly stars.

We stopped at Mr. Jelnik's house, and the man Daoud appeared in
answer to a low-voiced summons and fetched me a most beautiful
shawl, which I found extremely comfortable. A stately and stoical
personage was Daoud, unlike shy black Achmet, who hid himself from
observation so thoroughly that people in Hyndsville were not aware
of his existence. I sat on the steps while for Jessamine Hynds was
fetched a length of canvas, a linen sheet, and a gray army blanket.
Achmet appeared with spades. And so we set out.

The old cemetery in Hyndsville, unlike the newer one in which folks
take a sort of ghastly pride, one lot differing from another lot in
glory, is an unpretentious place, enclosed by crumbling walls, the
iron gates of which have rusted ajar. It is a grassy, bird-haunted,
tree-shaded spot, with some dozen or so old family vaults, some
modest monuments that bear stately names, some raised marble slabs
supported on carved and slender legs, like Death's own little
card-tables, some stones let flat into the earth, with names and
dates long since erased by rain and wind and fallen leaf. Nobody
comes here any more. Sophronisba Scarlett was the first and last to
be interred in the old cemetery within the memory of the present
generation.

We went down dismal paths where the night wind sighed a miserere in
the cedars, and things of the dark scurried away with furtive
noises, or flapped ill-omened black wings overhead. In a corner
shaded by cypresses was the Hynds vault, a venerable affair with a
slate roof. Outside, in an inclosed space were some marble-covered
graves and in a corner the simplest of all, one marked "R.H." Emily
slept beside him, and their son beside her. But on the farther side,
next the wall, was room for one more sleeper. And here, while Mr.
Jelnik laid down his burden, Daoud and Achmet began to dig.

She lay there in the ghostly light and shade, so utterly cast aside
and forgotten, so unloved, so unwept, so far removed from every
human tie, that terror and pity filled my heart. While Daoud and
Achmet were making ready her bed, Nicholas Jelnik and I spread out
the length of canvas, and wrapped her securely in the sheet and
blanket. We folded her claws upon the empty breast in which had once
pulsed the passionate heart of Jessamine Hynds, and spread