wondering whisper,--"I, Dolly Crewe!
How strange it sounds! Have I never thought that I could die before, or
is it strange because now it is so real and near? When I used to talk
about death to Grif, it always seemed so far away from both of us; it
seemed to me as if I was not good enough or unreal enough to be near
to Death,--great, solemn Death itself. Why, I could look at myself, and
wonder at the thought of how much I shall see and know if I should die.
Grif, how much I should have to tell you, dear,--only that people are
always afraid of spirits, and perhaps you would be afraid, too,--even of
me! What would they say at home? Dear, old, broken-hearted fellow, what
would _you_ say, if I should die?"

She could not help thinking about those at home; about Aimee and Mollie
and Phil and Toinette, sitting together in the dear old littered room at
Bloomsbury Place,--the dear old untidy room, where she had sat with Grif
so often! How would they all bear it when the letter came to tell them
she was gone, and would never be with them and share their pleasures and
troubles again! And then, strangely enough, she began to picture herself
as she would look; perhaps, laid out in this very room, a dimly outlined
figure, under a white sheet,--not her old self, but a solemn, wondrous
marble form, before whose motionless, mysterious presence they would
feel awed.

"And they would turn down the white covering and look at me," she found
herself saying. "And they would wonder at me, and feel that I was far
away. Oh, how they would wonder at me! And, at the very last, before
they hid my face forever under the coffin-lid, they would all kiss me
in that tender, solemn way,--all but Grif, who loved me best; and Grif
would not be there!"

And the piteous rain of heavy tears that rolled down her cheeks, and
fell upon her pillow, was not for herself,--not for her own pain and
weariness and anguish,--not' for the white, worn face, that would be
shut beneath the coffin-lid, but for Grif,--for Grif,--for Grif, who,
coming back some day to learn the truth, might hear that she had died!

CHAPTER XVII. ~ DO YOU KNOW THAT SHE IS DYING?

IT had come at last,--the letter from Geneva, for which they all had
waited with such anxious hearts and so much of dread. The postman,
bringing it by the morning's delivery, and handing it through the opened
door to Aimee, had wondered a little at her excited manner,--she was
always excited when these let