“But you ought to play outside,” said Mr. Weston.  “This is too sacred a place to be made the scene of your amusements.”

“We don’t hurt any body,” said the largest boy.  “When people are dead they don’t hear nothin; where’s the harm?”

“Well,” said Mr. Weston, “there’s one thing certain, none of you have any friends buried here.  If you had, you would not treat them so unkindly.”

“My mother is buried over yonder,” said the boy on the vault; “and if I thought there was any thing unkind in it, I would never come here to play again.”

“You are a good boy,” said Mr. Weston.  “I hope you will keep your word.  If you were buried there, I am sure your mother would be very sad and quiet by your grave.”

The boy drew the string to his bag, and walked off without looking back.

“I wish,” said Mr. Weston, “you would all follow his example.  We should always be respectful in our conduct, when we are in a burial-ground.”

As soon as they were gone, the boys laughed and marked out another game.

Mrs. Weston joined her party, and they went towards the new portion of the cemetery that is so beautifully situated, near the river.

“I think,” said Mr. Weston, “this scene should remind us of our conversation this morning.  If Washington be the meeting-place of all living, it is the grand cemetery of the dead.  Look around us here!  We see monuments to Senators and Members; graves of foreigners and strangers; names of the great, the rich, the powerful, men of genius and ambition.  Strewed along are the poor, the lowly, the unlearned, the infant, and the little child.

“Read the inscriptions—­death has come at last, watched and waited for; or he has come suddenly, unexpected, and undesired.  There lies an author, a bride, a statesman, side by side.  A little farther off is that simple, but beautiful monument.”

They approached, and Alice read the line that was inscribed around a cross sculptured in it, “Other refuge have I none!” Underneath was her name, “Angeline.”

“How beautiful, how much more so in its simplicity than if it had been ornamented, and a labored epitaph written upon it,” said Mr. Weston.  “Here too are members of families, assembled in one great family.  As we walk along, we pass mothers, and husbands, and children; but in life, they who lie here together, were possibly all strangers.”

“What is that large vault open to-day for?” said Ellen, to a man who seemed to have some charge in the place.

“That is the public receptacle,” said the man.  “We are obliged to air it very often, else we could never go in and out with the coffins we put there.  There’s a good many in there now.”

“Who is there?” said Mr. Weston.

“Well,” said the man, “Mrs. Madison is there, for one, and there are some other people, who are going to be moved soon.  Mrs. Madison, she’s going to be moved, too, some time or another, but I don’t know when.”