The monument, overgrown with blossoming vines, before which she paused, was a singular structure, that had been built of brick between her own and her uncle’s garden.

It was in the form of a strong wall, bounded by two tall pillars.  In the wall were three rows of deep niches with arched ceilings, while on the pillars, exquisitely painted upon a brownish-red ground, were the Genius of Death lowering his torch before an offering-altar, and Orpheus, who had released his wife from the realm of shadows and was now bearing her to the upper world.

Many of the niches were still empty, but in some stood vases of semi-transparent alabaster.

The newest, which had found a place in the lowest row, contained the ashes of the young girl’s grandfather, Dionysius, and his wife, and another pair of urns the two mothers, her own and Phaon’s.

Both had fallen victims on the same day to the plague, the only pestilence that had visited this bright coast within the memory of man.  This had happened eight years ago.

At that time Xanthe was still a child, but Phaon a tall lad.

The girl passed this place ten times a day, often thought of the beloved dead, and, when she chanced to remember them still more vividly, waved a greeting to the dear ashes, because some impulse urged her to give her faithful memory some outward expression.

Very rarely did she recall the day when the funeral-pile had cooled, and the ashes of the two mothers, both so early summoned to the realm of shadows, were collected, placed in the vases, and added to the other urns.  But now she could not help remembering it, and how she had sat before one of the pillars of the monument weeping bitterly, and asking herself again and again, if it were possible that her mother would never, never come to kiss her, speak caressing words, arrange her hair and pet her; nay, for the first time, she longed to hear even a sharp reproof from the lips now closed forever.

Phaon was standing by the other pillar, his eyes covered with his right hand.

Never before or since had she seen him look so sad, and it cut her to the heart when she noticed that he trembled as if a chill had seized him, and, drawing a long breath, pushed back the hair, which like a coalblack curtain, covered half his forehead.  She had wept bitterly, but he shed no tears.  Only a few poor words were exchanged between them in that hour, but each one still echoed in her ears to-day, as if hours instead of years intervened between that time and now.

“Mine was so good,” Xanthe had sobbed; but he only nodded, and, after fifteen minutes had passed, said nothing but, “And mine too.”

In spite of the long pause that separated the girl’s words from the boy’s, they were tenderly united, bound together by the thought, dwelling uninterruptedly in both childish hearts, “My mother was so good.”

It was again Xanthe who, after some time, had broken the silence by asking “Whom have I now?”