t the dead
as the young man who gave me my orders."

After several turnings, the gardener stopped and said to me: "Here we
are."

I saw before me a square of flowers which one would never have taken for
a grave, if it had not been for a white marble slab bearing a name.

The marble slab stood upright, an iron railing marked the limits of the
ground purchased, and the earth was covered with white camellias. "What
do you say to that?" said the gardener.

"It is beautiful."

"And whenever a camellia fades, I have orders to replace it."

"Who gave you the order?"

"A young gentleman, who cried the first time he came here; an old pal
of hers, I suppose, for they say she was a gay one. Very pretty, too, I
believe. Did you know her, sir?" "Yes."

"Like the other?" said the gardener, with a knowing smile. "No, I never
spoke to her."

"And you come here, too! It is very good of you, for those that come to
see the poor girl don't exactly cumber the cemetery."

"Doesn't anybody come?"

"Nobody, except that young gentleman who came once."

"Only once?"

"Yes, sir."

"He never came back again?"

"No, but he will when he gets home."

"He is away somewhere?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where he is?"

"I believe he has gone to see Mlle. Gautier's sister."

"What does he want there?"

"He has gone to get her authority to have the corpse dug up again and
put somewhere else."

"Why won't he let it remain here?"

"You know, sir, people have queer notions about dead folk. We see
something of that every day. The ground here was only bought for five
years, and this young gentleman wants a perpetual lease and a bigger
plot of ground; it will be better in the new part."

"What do you call the new part?"

"The new plots of ground that are for sale, there to the left. If the
cemetery had always been kept like it is now, there wouldn't be the like
of it in the world; but there is still plenty to do before it will be
quite all it should be. And then people are so queer!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that there are people who carry their pride even here. Now, this
Demoiselle Gautier, it appears she lived a bit free, if you'll excuse my
saying so. Poor lady, she's dead now; there's no more of her left than
of them that no one has a word to say against. We water them every day.
Well, when the relatives of the folk that are buried beside her found
out the sort of person she was, what do you think they said? That they
w