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And the murmur of the sea

Come across the orient lea,

And the falling raindrops sing

Gently to his slumbering.

Make it where the meadows wide

Greenly lie on every side,

Harvest fields he reaped and trod,

Westering slopes of clover sod,

Orchard lands where bloom and blow

Trees he planted long ago.

Make it where the starshine dim

May be alway close to him,

And the sunrise glory spread

Lavishly around his bed,

And the dewy grasses creep

Tenderly above his sleep.

Since these things to him were dear

Through full many a well-spent year,

It is surely meet their grace

Should be on his resting-place,

And the murmur of the sea

Be his dirge eternally.

‘I think Anthony Mitchell would have liked that,’ said Anne, flinging her window open to lean out to the spring. Already there were crooked little rows of young lettuce in the children’s garden; the sunset was soft and pink behind the maple grove; the Hollow rang with the faint, sweet laughter of children.

‘Spring is so lovely, I hate to go to sleep and miss any of it,’ said Anne.

Mrs Anthony Mitchell came up to get her ‘obitchery’ one afternoon the next week. Anne read it to her with a secret bit of pride; but Mrs Anthony’s face did not express unmixed satisfaction.

‘My, I call that real sprightly. You do put things so well. But… but… you didn’t say a word about him being in heaven. Weren’t you sure he is there?’

‘So sure that it wasn’t necessary to mention it, Mrs Mitchell.’

‘Well, some people might doubt. He… he didn’t go to church as often as he might… though he was a member in good standing. And it doesn’t tell his age… nor mention the flowers. Why, you just couldn’t count the wreaths on the coffin. Flowers are poetical enough I should think!’

‘I’m sorry…

‘Oh, I don’t blame you… not a mite do I blame you. You’ve done your best and it sounds beautiful. What do I owe you?’

‘Why… why… nothing, Mrs Mitchell. I couldn’t think of such a thing.’

‘Well, I thought likely you’d say that so I brung you up a bottle of my dandelion wine. It sweetens the stomach if you’re ever bothered with gas. I’d have brung a bottle of my yarb tea, too, only I was afraid the Doctor mightn’t approve. But if you’d like some and think you can smuggle it in unbeknownst to him you’ve only to say the word.’

‘No, no, thank you,’ said Anne rather flatly. She had not yet quite recovered from ‘sprightly’.

‘Just as you like. You’d be welcome to it. I’ll not be needing any more medicine myself this spring. When my second cousin, Malachi Plummer, died in the winter I asked his widow to give me the three bottles of medicine there was left over… they got it by the dozen. She was going to throw them out, but I was always one that could never bear to waste anything. I couldn’t take more than one bottle myself but I made our hired man take the other two. “If it doesn’t do you any good it won’t do you any harm,” I told him. I won’t say I’m not rather relieved you didn’t want any cash for the obitchery, for I’m rather short of ready money just now. A funeral is so expensive, though D. B. Martin is about the cheapest undertaker in these parts. I haven’t even got my black paid for yet. I won’t feel I’m really in mourning till it is. Luckily I hadn’t to get a new bunnit. This was the bunnit I had made for Mother’s funeral ten years ago. It’s kind of fortunate black becomes me, ain’t it? If you’d see Malachi Plummer’s widow now, with her saller face! Well, I must be stepping. And I’m much obliged to you, Mrs Blythe, even if… but I feel sure you did your best and it’s lovely poetry.’

‘Won’t you stay and have supper with us?’ asked Anne. ‘Susan and I are all alone… the doctor is away and the children are having their first picnic supper in the Hollow.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Mrs Anthony, slipping willingly back into her chair. ‘I’ll be glad to set a spell longer. Somehow it takes so long to get rested when you get old. And,’ she added, with a smile of dreamy beatitude on her pink face, ‘didn’t I smell fried parsnips?’

Anne almost grudged