too; to pluck the tendrils of the wild grapes that cluster here--this simple grandeur affected each one. He was again in life before them, steadily pursuing the great work for which he was sent, and now, reposing from his labor.
And then they passed on to the old, empty grave. It was decaying away, yawning with its open mouth as if asking for its honored tenement. Ellen gazed down and sprang in, and ere the others could recover from their astonishment, or come forward to offer her assistance, she looked up in her beauty from the dark spot where she was standing.
"Let me get out alone," said she; "I have such a prize;" and she held in her hand a bird's nest, with its three little white eggs deposited therein.
"Oh! Ellen," said Mrs. Weston, robbing a bird's nest. "Put it back, my dear."
"No, indeed, Mrs. Weston, do not ask me. Think of my finding it in Washington's grave. I mean to have it put on an alabaster stand, and a glass case over it, and consider it the most sacred gem I possess. There, Uncle Bacchus, keep it for me, and don't crush the eggs."
"I won't break 'em, Miss Ellen," said Bacchus, whose thoughts were apt to run on "sperrits." "I thought for certain you had see'd de old gentleman's ghost, and he had called you down in dat dark hole. But thar aint no danger of his comin back agin, I reckon. 'Pears as if it hadn't been long since I followed him to dis very grave."
"What!" said the Northern gentleman, "were niggers allowed to attend Washington's funeral?"
"Colored people was, sir," said Bacchus, in a dignified manner. "We aint much used to being called niggers, sir. We calls ourselves so sometimes, but gentlemen and ladies, sir, mostly calls us colored people, or servants. General Washington hisself, sir, always treated his servants with politeness. I was very well acquainted with them, and know'd all about the general's ways from them."
