On the 14th of February, the anniversary of my father’s death, wherever she might be, she always withdrew from the members of the household, and even her own children.  A second occasion of sharing her sorrowful emotion was repeated several times every summer.  This was the visit to the cemetery, which she rarely made alone.

The visits impressed us all strongly, and the one I first remember could not have occurred later than my fifth year, for I distinctly recollect that Frau Rapp’s horses took us to the churchyard.  My father was buried in the Dreifaltigkeitskirchhof,—­[Trinity churchyard]—­just outside the Halle Gate.  I found it so little changed when I entered it again, two years ago, that I could walk without a guide directly to the Ebers family vault.  But what a transformation had taken place in the way!

When we visited it with my mother, which was always in carriages, for it was a long distance from our home, we drove quickly through the city, the gate, and as far as the spot where I found the stately pile of the brick Kreuzkirche; then we turned to the right, and if we had come in cabs we children got out, it was so hard for the horses to drag the vehicles over the sandy road which led to the cemetery.

During this walk we gathered blue cornflowers and scarlet poppies from the fields, bluebells, daisies, ranunculus, and snapdragon from the narrow border of turf along the roadside, and tied them into bouquets for the graves.  My mother moved silently with us between the rows of grassy mounds, tombstones, and crosses, while we carried the pots of flowers and wreaths, which, to afford every one the pleasure of helping, she had distributed among us at the gravedigger’s house, just back of the cemetery.

Our family burial place—­my mother’s stone cross now stands there beside my father’s—­was one of those bounded in the rear by the church yard wall; a marble slab set in the masonry bears the owner’s name.  It is large enough for us all, and lies at the right of the path between Count Kalckreuth’s and the stately mausoleum which contains the earthly remains of Moritz von Oppenfeld—­who was by far the dearest of our father’s relatives—­and his family.

My mother led the way into the small enclosure, which was surrounded by an iron railing, and prayed or thought silently of the beloved dead who rested there.

Is there any way for us Protestants, when love for the dead longs to find expression in action, except to adorn with flowers the places which contain their earthly remains?  Their bright hues and a child’s beaming face are the only cheerful things which a mourner whose wounds are still bleeding freshly beside a coffin can endure to see, and I might compare flowers to the sound of bells.  Both are in place and welcome in the supreme moments of life.