happiness ever return, for the child died within a week, and when
the next came it died also, and the next, till six small innocents
lay buried in yonder old graveyard."

"I know; and sad enough it was too, especially as she and Philemon
were both fond of children. Well, well, the ways of Providence are
past rinding out! And now she is gone and Philemon---"

"Ah, he'll follow her soon; he can't live without Agatha."

Nearer home, the old sexton was chattering about the six
gravestones raised in Portchester churchyard to these six dead
infants. He had been sent there to choose a spot in which to lay
the mother, and was full of the shock it gave him to see that line
of little stones, telling of a past with which the good people of
Sutherlandtown found it hard to associate Philemon and Agatha
Webb.

"I'm a digger of graves," he mused, half to himself and half to
his old wife watching him from the other side of the hearthstone.
"I spend a good quarter of my time in the churchyard; but when I
saw those six little mounds, and read the inscriptions over them,
I couldn't help feeling queer. Think of this! On the first tiny
headstone I read these words:"

STEPHEN,

Son of Philemon and Agatha Webb,

Died, Aged Six Weeks.