as if I can't die happy 'less I do," she added;
"I ain't never seen nothin' of the world, an' here I be."

"What if you was as old as I be?" suggested Mrs. Dow pompously.
"You've got time enough yet, Betsey; don't you go an' despair. I
knowed of a woman that went clean round the world four times when she
was past eighty, an' enjoyed herself real well. Her folks followed the
sea; she had three sons an' a daughter married,--all shipmasters, and
she'd been with her own husband when they was young. She was left a
widder early, and fetched up her family herself,--a real stirrin',
smart woman. After they'd got married off, an' settled, an' was doing
well, she come to be lonesome; and first she tried to stick it out
alone, but she wa'n't one that could; an' she got a notion she hadn't
nothin' before her but her last sickness, and she wa'n't a person
that enjoyed havin' other folks do for her. So one on her boys--I
guess 'twas the oldest--said he was going to take her to sea; there
was ample room, an' he was sailin' a good time o' year for the Cape o'
Good Hope an' way up to some o' them tea-ports in the Chiny Seas. She
was all high to go, but it made a sight o' talk at her age; an' the
minister made it a subject o' prayer the last Sunday, and all the
folks took a last leave; but she said to some she'd fetch 'em home
something real pritty, and so did. An' then they come home t'other
way, round the Horn, an' she done so well, an' was such a sight o'
company, the other child'n was jealous, an' she promised she'd go a
v'y'ge long o' each on 'em. She was as sprightly a person as ever I
see; an' could speak well o' what she'd seen."

"Did she die to sea?" asked Peggy, with interest.

"No, she died to home between v'y'ges, or she'd gone to sea again. I
was to her funeral. She liked her son George's ship the best; 'twas
the one she was going on to Callao. They said the men aboard all
called her 'gran'ma'am,' an' she kep' 'em mended up, an' would go
below and tend to 'em if they was sick. She might 'a' been alive an'
enjoyin' of herself a good many years but for the kick of a cow; 'twas
a new cow out of a drove, a dreadful unruly beast."

Mrs. Dow stopped for breath, and reached down for a new supply of
beans; her empty apron was gray with soft chaff. Betsey Lane, still
pondering on the Centennial, began to sing another verse of her hymn,
and again the old women joined her. At this moment some strangers came
driving round into the