Mounting the slope beyond the bridge, the colonel's stride now
carefully accommodated to the child's puny step, they skirted a low
brick wall, beyond which white headstones gleamed in a mass of
verdure. Reaching an iron gate, the colonel lifted the latch, and
entered the cemetery which had been the object of their visit.
"Is this the place, papa?" asked the little boy.
"Yes, Phil, but it is farther on, in the older part."
They passed slowly along, under the drooping elms and willows, past
the monuments on either hand--here, resting on a low brick wall, a
slab of marble, once white, now gray and moss-grown, from which the
hand of time had well nigh erased the carved inscription; here a
family vault, built into the side of a mound of earth, from which only
the barred iron door distinguished it; here a pedestal, with a
time-worn angel holding a broken fragment of the resurrection trumpet;
here a prostrate headstone, and there another bending to its fall;
and among them a profusion of rose bushes, on some of which the early
roses were already blooming--scarcely a well-kept cemetery, for in
many lots the shrubbery grew in wild unpruned luxuriance; nor yet
entirely neglected, since others showed the signs of loving care, and
an effort had been made to keep the walks clean and clear.
Father and son had traversed half the width of the cemetery, when they
came to a spacious lot, surrounded by large trees and containing
several monuments.
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