But--who knows?--perhaps the dead prefer to be up-to-date, and to follow
the fashion in funeral furnishings; and surely such expert necropolitans
as our four friends ought to know. No doubt the Sheldon Center dead would
have the same tastes as the Sheldon Center living; for, after all, we
forget, in our idealization of them, that the dead, like the living, are
a vast _bourgeoisie_. Yes! it is a depressing thought--the _bourgeoisie_
of the dead!

As we stood talking, the young priest of the parish joined our group. He
was a German, from Düsseldorf, and his worn face lit up when he found
that Colin had been at Düsseldorf and could talk with him about it. As
he stood with us there on that bleak upland, he seemed a pathetic,
symbolic figure, lonely standard-bearer of the spirit in one of the
dreary colonies of that indomitable church that carries her mystic
sacraments even into the waste places and borders of the world. The
romance of Rome was far away beyond that horizon on which he turned his
wistful look; here was its hard work, its daily prose. But he turned
proudly to the great pile that loomed over us. We had commented on its
size in so remote a parish.

"Yes, I am proud of our people," he said. "It is greatly to their
credit." One could not help silently wondering that the spiritual needs
of this handful of lonely houses should demand so ambitious a structure.
But the symbols of the soul can never be too impressive. Then we said
good-bye to our friends, and struck out into the morning sunshine,
leaving the village of song behind.

Yes! in Sheldon Center they sing from morning till night--at
grave-making!