From the magnolias to the Northern orchards, from the apple-blooms to the prairie violets! The casket was laid in the tomb. Twilight came; the multitudes had gone. It was ended now, and night was falling. Two forms stood beside the closed door of the tomb; one was an old, gray-haired woman, the other was a patriarchal-looking man. The woman's gray hairs blew about her white face like silver threads, and she pushed it back with her withered hand. "Sister Olive," said the old man, "he loved others better than himself; and it is not this tomb, but the great heart of the world, that has taken him in. I felt that he was called. I felt it years ago." "Heaven forgive a poor old woman, elder! I misjudged that man. See here." She held up a bunch of half-withered prairie violets that she had carried about with her all the day, and then went and laid them on the tomb. "For Lincoln's sake! for Lincoln's sake!" she said, crying like a child. The two went away in the shadows, talking of all the past, and each has long slept under the violets of the prairies. THE END. |