They had not seen her; the graveyard was on the crest of the hill, and the road lay below the bank and the stone wall, wherein were set two or three iron doors streaked and eaten with rust, each with its name and its big ring-bolt. There was a bleached fringe of dead grass along the top of the wall, but the bank above was growing green in the April sunshine. There were many trees in this older part of the cemetery, and even now, when the foliage was hardly more than a mist, the tombs and low mounds and old headstones were dappled with light shadows. Miss Lydia and William had met here, by some chance; and Mrs. Barkley, climbing the road before it dipped below the bank, had caught sight of them just where the slope broke into sunshine beyond the trees. Behind them, leaning sidewise over a sunken grave, was a slate headstone, its base deep in a thatch of last year's grass; there were carved cherubs on the corners, and the inscription was blurred with lichen. A still older tomb, a slab of granite on four pedestals, made a seat for Miss Lydia. She had been deciphering its crumbling inscription:
"Mr. Amos Sm ... Sr. Born ...... 1734 Die ... May 7th, 1802 Aged 68
"Base body, thou art faint and weak-- (How the sweet moments roll!) A mortal paleness on thy cheek, But glory in thy soul!"
William, reading it, had remarked that he thought people lived longer nowadays. "Don't you?" he added, anxiously.
"We live long enough," Miss Lydia said. "I don't want to live too long."
"You can't live too long," he told her, with his sharp smile.
Miss Lydia laughed and looked down at the crumbling stone. "I think sixty-eight was just about long enough. I'm like Dr. Lavendar; he says he 'wants to get up from the banquet of life _still hungry_.' That's the way I feel. I don't want to lose my appetite for life by getting too much of it."
"I couldn't get too much," Mr. Rives said, nervously. "Let us proceed. This place is--is not cheerful. I like cheerfulness. You always seem cheerful, Lydy?"
"Course I am," she said, getting up. "Why shouldn't I be? I haven't a care in the world."
"You don't say so!" said William Rives. "I was under the impression that your circumstances--"
"My circumstances?" said Miss Lydia. "Bless you! I haven't any. Father didn't leave much of anything. I had $2000, but Cousin Robinson invested it and lost it. He felt so badly, I was just distressed about him."
