It is on the little graves that the sun first rises at morn, and it is
there at evening that the moon lays softly her first silver flowers.

There the wren will sometimes bring her sky-blue eggs for a gift, and
the summer wind come sowing seeds of magic to take the fancy of the
little one beneath. Sometimes it shakes the hyacinths like a rattle of
silver, and spreads the turf above with a litter of coloured toys.

Here the butterflies are born with the first warm breath of the spring.
All the winter they lie hidden in the crevices of the stone, in the
carving of little names, and with the first spring day they stand
delicately and dry their yellow wings on the little graves. There are
the honeycombs of friendly bees, and the shelters of many a timid
earth-born speck of life no bigger than a dewdrop, mysteriously small.
Radiant pin-points of existence have their palaces on the broad blades
of the grasses, and in the cellars at their roots works many a humble
little slave of the mighty elements.

Yes, the emperors and the ants of Nature's vast economy alike love to be
kind to the little graves.




CHAPTER XV


SILENCIEUX ALONE IN THE WOOD.