"
"You define your reasons with astonishing care and taste," she replied.
"Oh, as to taste!--" said I; but then I bit my tongue.
At that she said, her lips very firm and pale, "I could not pretend to a
grief I did not feel. I acted no lie. He died as we had lived--estranged.
I put up no memorials."
But I, thinking of my mother lying in her grave, a woman after God's own
heart, who loved me more than I deserved, repeated almost unconsciously
these lines (clipped from a magazine):
"Sacred the ring, the faded glove,
Once worn by one we used to love;
Dead warriors in their armour live,
And in their relics saints survive.
"Oh, Mother Earth, henceforth defend
All thou hast garnered of my friend,
From winter's wind and driving sleet,
From summer's sun and scorching heat.
"Within thine all-embracing breast
Is hid one more forsaken nest;
While, in the sky, with folded wings,
The bird that left it sits and sings."
I paused; the occasion seemed so little suited to the sentiment, for
around us was the idle excitement of leaving port.
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