in our pathway, and catching most of us,--all of us,--causing us to tumble
in at the most inconvenient opportunities, so that all human life is a
jest and a farce, just for the sake of this inopportune death; for I
observe it never waits for us to accomplish anything: we may have the
salvation of a country in hand, but we are none the less likely to die for
that. So that, being a believer, on the whole, in the wisdom and
graciousness of Providence, I am convinced that dying is a mistake, and
that by and by we shall overcome it. I say there is no use in the grave."

"I still adhere to what I said," answered Sibyl Dacy; "and besides, there
is another use of a grave which I have often observed in old English
graveyards, where the moss grows green, and embosses the letters of the
gravestones; and also graves are very good for flower-beds."

Nobody ever could tell when the strange girl was going to say what was
laughable,--when what was melancholy; and neither of Sibyl's auditors knew
quite what to make of this speech. Neither could Septimius fail to be a
little startled by seeing her, as she spoke of the grave as a flower-bed,
stoop down to the little hillock to examine the flowers, which, indeed,
seemed to prove her words by growing there in strange abundance, and of
many sorts; so that, if they could all have bloomed at once, the spot
would have looked like a bouquet by itself, or as if the earth were
richest in beauty there, or as if seeds had been lavished by some florist.
Septimius could not account for it, for though the hill-side did produce
certain flowers,--the aster, the golden-rod, the violet, and other such
simple and common things,--yet this seemed as if a carpet of bright colors
had been thrown down there and covered the spot.

"This is very strange," said he.