“Did she die too?” asked George.

Filling his mouth with an enormous quid of tobacco, the landlord continued, “No, but it’s a pity she didn’t, for when Bill and the boy died, she went ravin’ mad, and I never felt so like cryin’ as I did when I see her a tearin’ her hair an goin’ on so.  We kept her a spell, and then her old man’ brother’s girl came for her and took her off; and the last I heard, the girl was dead, and she was in the poor-house somewhere east.  She was born there, I b’lieve.”

“No she warn’t, either,” said the landlady, who for some minutes had been aching to speak.  “No she warn’t, either.  I know all about it.  She was born in England, and got to be quite a girl before she came over.  Her name was Sarah Fletcher, and Peter Fletcher, who died with the cholera, was her own uncle, and all the connection she had in this country;—­but goodness suz, what ails you?” she added, as Mary turned deathly white, while George passed his arm around her to keep her from falling.  “Here, Sophrony, fetch the camphire; she’s goin’ to faint.”

But Mary did not faint, and after smelling the camphor, she said, “Go on, madam, and tell me more of Sarah Fletcher.”

“She can do it,” whispered the landlord with a sly wink.  “She knows every body’s history from Dan to Beersheby.”

This intimation was wholly lost on the good-humored hostess, who continued, “Mr. Fletcher died when Sarah was small, and her mother married a Mr. ——­, I don’t justly remember his name”

“Temple?” suggested Mary.

“Yes, Temple, that’s it.  He was rich and cross, and broke her heart by the time she had her second baby.  Sarah was adopted by her Grandmother Fletcher who died, and she came with her uncle to America.”

“Did she ever speak of her sisters?” asked Mary, and the woman replied, “Before she got crazy, she did.  One of ’em, she said, was in this country somewhere, and t’other the one she remembered the best, and talked the most about, lived in England.  She said she wanted to write to ’em, but her uncle, he hated the Temples, so he wouldn’t let her, and as time went on she kinder forgot ’em, and didn’t know where to direct, and after she took crazy she never would speak of her sisters, or own that she had any.”

“Is Mr. Furbush buried near here?” asked George; and the landlord answered, “Little better than a stone’s throw.  I can see the very tree from here, and may-be your younger eyes can make out the graves.  He ought to have a grave stun, for he was a good feller.”

The new moon was shining, and Mary, who came to her husband’s side, could plainly discern the buckeye tree and the two graves where “Willie and Willie’s father” had long been sleeping.  The next morning before the sun was up, Mary stood by the mounds where often in years gone by Sally Furbush had seen the moon go down, and the stars grow pale in the coming day, as she kept her tireless watch over her loved and lost.