and inconsequent things, and once again I walk before all the other
mourners close behind her coffin as it is carried along the churchyard
path to her grave, with the old vicar's slow voice saying regretfully
and unconvincingly above me, triumphant solemn things.

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and
believeth in me shall never die."

Never die! The day was a high and glorious morning in spring, and all
the trees were budding and bursting into green. Everywhere there were
blossoms and flowers; the pear trees and cherry trees in the sexton's
garden were sunlit snow, there were nodding daffodils and early tulips
in the graveyard beds, great multitudes of daisies, and everywhere
the birds seemed singing. And in the middle was the brown coffin end,
tilting on men's shoulders and half occluded by the vicar's Oxford hood.

And so we came to my mother's waiting grave.

For a time I was very observant, watching the coffin lowered, hearing
the words of the ritual. It seemed a very curious business altogether.

Suddenly as the service drew to its end, I felt something had still
to be said which had not been said, realised that she had withdrawn
in silence, neither forgiving me nor hearing from me--those now lost
assurances. Suddenly I knew I had not understood. Suddenly I saw her
tenderly; remembered not so much tender or kindly things of her as her
crossed wishes and the ways in which I had thwarted her. Surprisingly
I realised that behind all her hardness and severity she had loved me,
that I was the only thing she had ever loved and that until this moment