She took off her gloves, knelt down beside the spring, and dipping up the cold, sparkling water in her palms, drank and wept, and drank again. She bathed her aching eyes, and almost cheated herself into the belief that she heard again Grip's fierce bark ringing through the woods, and the slow, drowsy tinkle of Brindle's bell. Turning aside from the beaten track, she entered the thick grove of chestnuts, and looked around for the grave of the Dents; but the mound had disappeared, and though she recognized the particular tree which had formerly overhung it, and searched the ground carefully, she could discover no trace of the hillock where she had so often scattered flowers. A squirrel leaped and frisked in the boughs above her, and she startled a rabbit from the thick grass and fallen yellow leaves: but neither these, nor the twitter of gossiping orioles, nor the harsh, hungry cry of a bluebird told her a syllable of all that had happened in her absence.
She conjectured that the bodies had probably been disinterred by friends and removed to Georgia; and she hurried on toward the hillside, where the neighborhood graveyard was situated. The rude, unpainted paling still enclosed it, and rows of headboards stretched away among grass and weeds; but whose was that shining marble shaft, standing in the centre of a neatly arranged square, around which ran a handsome iron railing? On that very spot, in years gone by, had stood a piece of pine board: "Sacred to the memory of Aaron Hunt, an honest blacksmith and true Christian."
Who had dared to disturb his bones, to violate his last resting- place, and to steal his grave for the interment of some wealthy stranger? A cry of horror and astonishment broke from the orphan's trembling lips, and she shaded her eyes with her hand, and tried to read the name inscribed on the monument of the sacrilegious interloper. But bitter, scalding tears of indignation blinded her. She dashed them away, but they gathered and fell faster; and, unbolting the gate, she entered the enclosure and stepped close to the marble.
ERECTED IN HONOR OF AARON HUNT: BY HIS DEVOTED GRANDDAUGHTER.
These gilded words were traced on the polished surface of the pure white obelisk, and on each corner of the square pedestal or base stood beautifully carved vases, from which drooped glossy tendrils of ivy.
As Edna looked in amazement at the glittering shaft, which rose twenty feet in the autumn air; as she rubbed her eyes and re-read the golden inscription, and looked at the sanded walks, and the well-trimmed evergreens, which told that careful hands kept the lot in order, she sank down at the base of the beautiful monument, and laid her hot cheek on the cold marble.