dors of jessamine, honeysuckle, and orange flowers hung
heavily in the hollows. It seemed to Courtland like the mourning of
beautiful and youthful widowhood, seductive even in its dissembling
trappings, provocative in the contrast of its own still strong virility.
Everywhere the grass grew thick and luxuriant; the quick earth was
teeming with the germination of the dead below.

They moved slowly along side by side, speaking only of the beauty of the
spot and the glory of that summer day, which seemed to have completed
its perfection here. Perhaps from the heat, the overpowering perfume,
or some unsuspected sentiment, the young lady became presently as silent
and preoccupied as her companion. She began to linger and loiter behind,
hovering like a butterfly over some flowering shrub or clustered sheaf
of lilies, until, encountered suddenly in her floating draperies, she
might have been taken for a somewhat early and far too becoming ghost.
It seemed to him, also, that her bright eyes were slightly shadowed by
a gentle thoughtfulness. He moved close to her side with an irresistible
impulse of tenderness, but she turned suddenly, and saying, "Come!"
moved at a quicker pace down a narrow side path. Courtland followed. He
had not gone far before he noticed that the graves seemed to fall into
regular lines, the emblems became cheaper and more common; wooden head
and foot stones of one monotonous pattern took the place of carved
freestone or marble, and he knew that they had reached that part of the
cemetery reserved for those who had fallen in the war. The long lines
drawn with military precision stretched through the little valley, and
again up the opposite hill in an odd semblance of hollow squares, ranks,
and columns. A vague recollection of the fateful slope of Snake River
came over him. It was intensified as Miss Sally, who was still preceding
him, suddenly stopped before an isolated mound bearing a broken marble
shaft and a pedestal with the inscription, "Chester Brooks." A few
withered garlands and immortelles were lying at its base, but encircling
the broken shaft was a perfectly fresh, unfaded wreath.

"You never told me he was buried here!" said Courtland quickly, half
shocked at the unexpected revelation. "Was he from this State?"

"No, but his regiment was," said Miss Sally, eying the wreath
critically.

"And this wreath, is it from you?" continued Courtland gently.

"Yes, I thought yo' 'd like to see something