I think they'd better mind their own business, and
you mind yours!

JULIA. Laura! Here we don't talk about such things. They don't concern us.
Would you like tea, Martha, or will you wait for supper?

MARTHA (_who has shaken her head at the offer of tea, and nodded a
preference for supper_). You know how I've always dreaded death.

JULIA. Oh, don't, my dear Martha! It's past.

MARTHA. Yes; but it's upset me. The relief, that's what I can't get over:
the relief!

JULIA. Presently you will be more used to it.

(_She helps her off with her cloak_.)

MARTHA. There were people sitting to right and to left of me and opposite;
and suddenly a sort of crash of darkness seemed to come all over me, and I
saw nothing more. I didn't feel anything: only a sort of a jar here.

(_She indicates the back of her neck. Julia finds these anatomical
details painful, and holds her hands deprecatingly; but Laura has no such
qualms. She is now undoing the parcel which, she considers, is hers_.)

LAURA. I daresay it was only somebody's box from the luggage-rack. I've
known that happen. I don't suppose for a minute that it was a railway
accident.

(_She unfurls the tissue paper of the box and takes out the wreath_)

JULIA. Why talk about it?

LAURA. Anyway, nothing has happened to these. 'With fondest love from
Martha.' H'm. Pretty!

JULIA. Martha, would you like to go upstairs with your things? And you,
Laura?

MARTHA. I will presently, when I've got warm.

LAURA. Not yet. Martha, why was I put into that odious shaped coffin? More
like a canoe than anything. I said it was to be straight,

MARTHA. I'd nothing to do with it, Laura. I wasn't there. You know I
wasn't.

LAURA. If you'd come when I asked you, you could have seen to it.

MARTHA. You didn't tell me you were dying.

LAURA. Do people tell each other when they are dying? They don't
_know_. I told you I wasn't well.

MARTHA. You always told me that, just when I'd settled down somewhere
else.... Of course I'd have come if I'd known! (_testily)._

JULIA. Oh, surely we needn't go into these matters now! Isn't it better to
accept things?

LAURA. I like to have my wishes attended to. What was going to be done
about the furniture? (_This to Martha_.) You know, I suppose, that I
left it to the two of you--you and Edwin?

MARTHA. We were going to give it to Bella, to set up house with.

LAURA. _That's_ not what I intended. I meant you to keep on the house
and live th