ut them hysterics. She fainted
dead away and we had to lay her flat on the floor, and the Doctor he
came runnin' out and he said somethin' about a weak heart dreadful
fierce to Mrs. Sam Abbot, but she wa'n't a mite scared. She faced him
jest as white as even Luella was layin' there lookin' like death and
the Doctor feelin' of her pulse.

"'Weak heart,' says she, 'weak heart; weak fiddlesticks! There ain't
nothin' weak about that woman. She's got strength enough to hang onto
other folks till she kills 'em. Weak? It was my poor mother that was
weak: this woman killed her as sure as if she had taken a knife to her.'

"But the Doctor he didn't pay much attention. He was bendin' over
Luella layin' there with her yellow hair all streamin' and her pretty
pink-and-white face all pale, and her blue eyes like stars gone out,
and he was holdin' onto her hand and smoothin' her forehead, and
tellin' me to get the brandy in Aunt Abby's room, and I was sure as I
wanted to be that Luella had got somebody else to hang onto, now Aunt
Abby was gone, and I thought of poor Erastus Miller, and I sort of
pitied the poor young Doctor, led away by a pretty face, and I made up
my mind I'd see what I could do.

"I waited till Aunt Abby had been dead and buried about a month, and
the Doctor was goin' to see Luella steady and folks were beginnin' to
talk; then one evenin', when I knew the Doctor had been called out of
town and wouldn't be round, I went over to Luella's. I found her all
dressed up in a blue muslin with white polka dots on it, and her hair
curled jest as pretty, and there wa'n't a young girl in the place could
compare with her. There was somethin' about Luella Miller seemed to
draw the heart right out of you, but she didn't draw it out of ME. She
was settin' rocking in the chair by her sittin'-room window, and Maria
Brown had gone home. Maria Brown had been in to help her, or rather to
do the work, for Luella wa'n't helped when she didn't do anythin'.
Maria Brown was real capable and she didn't have any ties; she wa'n't
married, and lived alone, so she'd offered. I couldn't see why she
should do the work any more than Luella; she wa'n't any too strong; but
she seemed to think she could and Luella seemed to think so, too, so
she went over and did all the work--washed, and ironed, and baked,
while Luella sat and rocked. Maria didn't live long afterward. She
began to fade away just the same fashion the others had. Well,