86 “THESE THRER.”

““T will guard them and keep them fresh,”
whispered the Moss ; and crept in among the old
stony memories, till nobody would have known
them again.

Had the old lady of the house been about with
eyes to see indeed, she would have called to the
gardener, and bidden him scrape the moss off the
walk, lest some one should fall; she had done so
often enough before, of late years. One can’t
allow sentiment everywhere, you know. But no-
body interfered now. The old lady was sick, and
so was her old husband the rector, and the sound
of footsteps had ceased along the old terrace walk.
Alas! the memories it groaned under told a very
different tale. Heaps of little feet, as well as the
parents’, had pattered on it once, and the moss
had kept its place in the grass. And when the
little feet grew bigger, and trod it oftener and
firmer still, the moss still held back. Then by
and by they dropped off—one pair after another—
till the old people’s steps sounded alone on the
gravel, and the walk must be scraped from time to

ime or it would have been overgrown and slip-