which he pointed was a garden; heliotrope, myosotis, hare-bells and
mignonette had made of the mound a bed of perfume--"see how quietly
she lies--and yet what a restless soul the flowers cover! She, too,
died hard. It took her years to make up her mind; finally _le bon Dieu_
had to decide it for her, when she was eighty-four. She complained to
the last--she was poor, she was in my way, she was blind. '_Eh bien, tu
n'as pas besoin de me faire les beaux yeux, toi_'--I used to say to
her. Ah, the good soul that she was!" and the dark eye glistened with
moisture. A moment later the cure was blowing vigorously the note of
his grief, in trumpet-tones, through the organ that only a Frenchman
can render an effective adjunct to moments of emotion.

"You see, _mes enfants_, I am like that--I weep over my friends--when
they are gone! But see," he added quickly, recovering himself--"see,
over yonder there is my predecessor's grave. He lies well, _hein?_--
comfortable, too--looking his old church in the face and the sun on his
old bones all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will have
company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a friend." The humorous smile
was again curving his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were
beginning to quiver. "When my friend and I lie there, we shall be a
little crowded, perhaps. I said to him, when he proposed it, proposed
to lie there with us, 'but we shall be crunching each other's bones!'
'No,' he replied, 'only falling into each other's arms!' So it was
settled. He comes over from Havre, every now and then, to talk our
tombstones over; we drink a glass of wine together, and take a pipe and
talk about our future--in eternity! Ah, how gay we are! It is so good
to be friends with God!"

The voice deepened into seriousness. He went on in a quieter key: