upon the road as I drove up. I recognized her as the woman whose
acquaintance I had made in the train a few days previously, and in
whose company I had travelled from Chicago hither. She had been a
pleasant chance acquaintance--intelligent, gentle, and refined.

"Will you ride back to town with me?" I said.

She accepted the offer of the seat beside me, carefully holding her
flowers.

"How odd that grave looks with its marshalled array of hollyhocks!" I
said, by way of opening conversation, for she sat there silent. "What
a peculiar taste, to adorn a loved one's last resting-place in that
way!"

She looked up at me silently, and I noticed that her eyes were hollow,
and her face sad. Then she turned toward the graveyard and the tall
red hollyhocks standing out so vividly in the sunset glow, and said
quietly:

"It is my mother's grave. I planted the hollyhocks upon it."

She was silent again, looking sadly and tenderly at the flowers in her
lap, but presently she went on:

"I do not mind telling you why I did it. Perhaps talking about it will
lessen the heaviness of my heart. No one but my sister knows why I
planted them there, and she has never seen the grave, nor have I seen
her, since our mother died. When we were young girls at home, our
mother loved hollyhocks. She had the yard filled with great clumps of