This was the sum of his sermon. Few understood it, but they did not perhaps value it the less highly on that account. To Basil it came as a reproach; he quivered under the strokes and left the place of worship with a beating heart, with tumultuous thoughts in his mind. Scarcely noting whither he was going he walked towards the churchyard, and there in the distance, sitting by a grave, he saw a child. It was Edith sitting by the grave of her baby sister.
The scene, the attitude, brought Annette's form to his mind. So used she to sit by her mother's grave on the plantation, and he had accompanied her and sat by her side. He looked about for flowers; there were none near; but when he approached Edith he saw that she had some in her lap, and was weaving them into a garland, as Annette had done in a time really not so very long ago, but which seemed to belong to another life. She looked up at him, and the tenderness of her gaze touched him deeply; instantly on her countenance was reflected the sad wistfulness which dwelt on his. Children are peculiarly receptive; they meet your smiles with smiles, your sadness with sadness. Edith just shifted her little body, conveying in the slight movement an invitation to Basil to sit beside her. He instantly took his place close to her, and they fell naturally into conversation.
"I like that, too. Here is a flower for you."
"We have a garden. Father says it puts him in mind of home."
"Don't you know? Everybody else does. He's the editor of the _Princetown Argus_. You know that, don't you?"
"Oh, yes. She is very clever." Basil nodded. "Father says she is the cleverest woman in the world. She can make clothes, she can cook, she knows all about flowers, she can write paragraphs for the paper, and when they are written she can print them."
"That is a great deal for your mother to do. Does she really help to print the newspaper?"
"Not now. She did when we first came here. But father has a great many gentlemen printers in the office, and they do all that. These are English flowers. The seeds come all the way from England where I was born; but I don't remember it because I was only a little baby when we came over in a great big ship. I don't remember the ship either, but I know all about it because mother has told me about the great storm, and how we were nearly wrecked, and how the ship was battered to pieces almost."