etter hand than I do--for
you see, Liz, you are still alive. Oh, but I don't know that I'd swap
with you, for I'll soon know nothing about it, and I guess you'll tote
it about with you awhile, anyway. I know I would if I lived, and that is
why I tried the dope-route last night. Those thoughts have been in my
mind some time. By the way, I want my pink on and the other things, and
my hair fixed the same way. Don't forget. There won't be any preacher
needed. I don't want any long-faced chap to whitewash my giddy record or
to make an example of me. We are close to the graveyard, thank the
powers that be, and I won't have to ride through town feet foremost. I
wish the girls would stay away. I don't know why, but I do."

Jane's eyelids were drooping, and, thinking that she might sleep, Lizzie
crept from the room. It was a long, sleepless night for Mrs. Trott.
About every hour she would go to Jane, bend over her, and listen to her
soft breathing. She was too inexperienced to know whether a decided
change was taking place. She joyfully greeted the first gray streaks of
daylight in the sky and began to watch for the coming of Mandy.
Presently the servant came, accompanied by her husband, a lusty,
middle-aged laborer, who simply tipped his hat and sat down on the
sawhorse in the wood-yard.

"Jake say he 'low you may need er man about," Mandy explained. "How she
comin' on?"

"Just the same, when I last saw her," Lizzie said. "Will you go in and
see her?"

Mandy was in Jane's room several minutes. Then she came back, a serious
and resigned look on her swarthy face.

"I was jes' in time," she said, stoically. "She opened 'er eyes, Mis'
Trott, en' look' straight at me, en' smiled en' laughed, low-like. 'I
done hat my share er fun,' she say. En' wid dat she fetched er big
breath en' died. I didn't tetch 'er--no, ma'am, I didn't lay han's on
'er. Jake tol' me not ter. Jake say his maw tol' 'im dat 'twon't do ter
tetch de corpse of any but dem dat's 'ceptable ter old St. Peter. Jake
say dat de evil sperit is still housed up in de corruption, en' dat it
will go inter any livin' flesh dat give it er chance. But somebody got
ter dress 'er, Mis' Trott. It is a 'ooman's place. Dar is a black
mid-wife 'cross town dat does all sorts er odd jobs. Jake say he think
she would come. She got witch en' hoodoo charms, en' say ol' Nick en'
all his imps cayn't faze 'er. Jake will go fer 'er ef you say so."

"Very well, very well," Lizzie consent