nything happened?--is anything the
matter with Mara?"

"Matter enough. I've known it a long time," said Miss Roxy. "She's been
goin' down for three months now; and she's got that on her that will
carry her off before the year's out."

"Pshaw, Aunt Roxy! how lugubriously you old nurses always talk! I hope
now you haven't been filling Mara's head with any such notions--people
can be frightened into anything."

"Sally Kittridge, don't be a-talkin' of what you don't know nothin'
about! It stands to reason that a body that was bearin' the heat and
burden of the day long before you was born or thought on in this world
_should_ know a thing or two more'n you. Why, I've laid you on your
stomach and trotted you to trot up the wind many a day, and I was pretty
experienced then, and it ain't likely that I'm a-goin' to take sa'ce
from you. Mara Pennel is a gal as has every bit and grain as much
resolution and ambition as you have, for all you flap your wings and
crow so much louder, and she's one of the close-mouthed sort, that don't
make no talk, and she's been a-bearin' up and bearin' up, and comin' to
me on the sly for strengthenin' things. She's took camomile and
orange-peel, and snake-root and boneset, and dash-root and
dandelion--and there hain't nothin' done her no good. She told me to-day
she couldn't keep up no longer, and I've been a-tellin' Mis' Pennel and
her grand'ther. I tell you it has been a solemn time; and if you're
goin' in, don't go in with none o' your light triflin' ways, 'cause 'as
vinegar upon nitre is he that singeth songs on a heavy heart,' the
Scriptur' says."

"Oh, Miss Roxy, do tell me truly," said Sally, much moved. "What do you
think is the matter with Mara? I've noticed myself that she got tired
easy, and that she was short-breathed--but she seemed so cheerful. Can
anything really be the matter?"

"It's consumption, Sally Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, "neither more nor
less; that ar is the long and the short. They're going to take her over
to Portland to see Dr. Wilson--it won't do no harm, and it won't do no
good."

"You seem to be determined she shall die," said Sally in a tone of
pique.

"Determined, am I? Is it I that determines that the maple leaves shall
fall next October? Yet I know they will--folks can't help knowin' what
they know, and shuttin' one's eyes won't alter one's road. I s'pose you
think 'cause you're young and middlin' good-lookin' that you have
feelin's and I hasn't; well