garment around her that made her resemble
more than ever the cockatoo of which Sheila had thought on first
seeing her. "Yes," said Sheila. "I want to see you alone: I can't bear
him dawdling about a room, and staring at things, and saying nothing.
Does he speak to you?"

Sheila did not wish to enter into any controversy about the habits
of her husband, so she said, "I hope you will see him before he goes,
Mrs. Lavender. He is very anxious to know how you are, and I am glad
to find you looking so well. You do not look like an invalid at all."

"Oh, I'm not going to die yet," said the little dried old woman with
the harsh voice, the staring eyes and the tightly-twisted gray hair.
"I hope you didn't come to read the Bible to me: you wouldn't find one
about in any case, I should think. If you like to sit down and read
the sayings of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, I should enjoy that;
but I suppose you are too busy thinking what dress you'll wear at my
funeral."

"Indeed, I was thinking of no such thing," said Sheila indignantly,
but feeling all the same that the hard, glittering, expressionless
eyes were watching her.

"Do you think I believe you?" said Mrs. Lavender. "Bah! I hope I
am able to recognize the facts of life. If you were to die this
afternoon, I should get a black silk trimmed with crape the moment I
got on my feet again, and go to your funeral in the ordinary way. I
hope you will pay me the same respect. Do you think I am afraid to
speak of these things?"

"Why should you speak of them?" said Sheila despairingly.

"Because it does you good to contemplate the worst that can befall
you, and if it does not happen you may rejoice. And it will happen.
I know I shall be lying in this bed, with half a dozen of you round
about trying to cry, and wondering which will have the courage to turn
and go out of the room first. Then there will be the funeral day, and
Paterson will be careful about the blinds, and go about the house on
her tiptoes, as if I were likely to hear! Then there will be a pretty
service up in the cemetery, and a man who never saw me will speak of
his dear sister departed; and then you'll all go home and have your
dinner. Am I afraid of it?"

"Why should you talk like that?" said Sheila piteously. "You are not
going to die. You distress yourself and others by thinking of these
horrible things."

"My dear child, there is nothing horrible in nature. Everything is
part of the universal system wh