“They all helped to dig it; and they know they did.”

Words that appeared to be so far from the tragical recollection which must have first caused this disturbance in her poor mind; but her grand-daughter thought proper to make her some kind of answer.

“Did they, grandmother?” she said in a soothing tone, “and a very good thing too.”

She stopped short, for upon the aged face fell suddenly such a look of affright, such renewed intelligence seemed to peer out of the dim eyes, and such defiance with their scrutiny, that for the moment she was very much alarmed.

“She’s not quite herself.  Oh, I hope she’s not going to have a stroke!” was her thought.

“What have I been a saying?” inquired Madam Melcombe.

“You said it was a good thing they dug the lily bed,” answered her grand-daughter.

“And nothing else?”

“No, ma’am, no,” answered the nurse; “and if you had, what would it signify?”

Madam Melcombe let them settle her in her chair and give her her cordial, then she said—­

“Folks are oft-times known to talk wild in their age.  I thought I might be losing my wits; might have said something.”

“Dear grandmother, don’t laugh!” exclaimed her grandson’s widow; “and don’t look so strange.  Lose your wits! you never will, not you.  We shall have you a little longer yet, please God, and bright and sensible to the last.”

“Folks are oft-times known to talk wild in their age,” repeated Madam Melcombe; and during the rest of that evening she continued silent and lost in thought.

The next morning, after a late breakfast, her family observed that there was still a difference in her manner.  She was not quite herself, they thought, and they were confirmed in their opinion when she demanded of her grand-daughter and her grandson’s widow, that a heavy old-fashioned bureau should be opened for her, and that she should be left alone.  “I don’t know as I shall be spared much longer,” said the meek nonogenarian, “and I’ve made up my mind to write a letter to my sons.”

“My sons!” When they heard this they were startled almost as they might have been if she had had no sons, for neither of them had ever heard her mention their names.  Nothing, in fact, was known concerning them in that house, excepting that what portion of success and happiness had been allotted to the family seemed all to have fallen to their share.

They were vastly unpopular in the hamlet.  Not that any but the very old people remembered the day when they had first been missing, or what an extraordinary effect their behaviour had produced on their mother; but that the new generation had taken up her cause—­the new parson also—­and that the story being still often told had lost nothing in the narration.