healthfully elevated above the level of the living, were the dead, and the tombstones; some of the latter droopingly inclined from the perpendicular, as if they were ashamed of the lies they told.
They paced the whole of this place once, in a constrained and uncomfortable manner, when the boy stopped and said:
“Lizzie, Mr. Headstone has something to say to you. I don’t wish to be an interruption either to him or to you, and so I’ll go and take a little stroll and come back. I know in a general way what Mr. Headstone intends to say, and I very highly approve of it, as I hope—and indeed I do not doubt—you will. I needn’t tell you, Lizzie, that I am under great obligations to Mr. Headstone, and that I am very anxious for Mr. Headstone to succeed in all he undertakes. As I hope—and as, indeed, I don’t doubt—you must be.”
“Charley,” returned his sister, detaining his hand as he withdrew it, “I think you had better stay. I think Mr. Headstone had better not say what he thinks of saying.”
“Why, how do you know what it is?” returned the boy.
“Perhaps I don’t, but—”
“Perhaps you don’t? No, Liz, I should think not. If you knew what it was, you would give me a very different answer. There; let go; be sensible. I wonder you don’t remember that Mr. Headstone is looking on.”
She allowed him to separate himself from her, and he, after saying, “Now Liz, be a rational girl and a good sister,” walked away. She remained standing alone with Bradley Headstone, and it was not until she raised her eyes, that he spoke.
“I said,” he began, “when I saw you last, that there was something unexplained, which might perhaps influence you. I have come this