Volume II Part 17 (2/2)

She had sent Maria down for Mel and me to come up-stairs with whatever occupied us, for she was convinced that she was failing fast, and knew we should regret it if we did not have the last of her. As we had received the same message nearly every other day during the last three or four weeks, we did not feel extraordinarily alarmed, but composedly took our baskets and scissors, and trudged along after Maria.

”I am sure I ought to be glad that I've succeeded in training my nieces into such industrious habits,” said Aunt Pen, after a little while, looking at Mel; ”but I should think that when a near relative approached the point of death, the fact might throw needle and thread into the background for a time.” Then she paused for Maria to fan a little more breath into her. ”It's different with Helen,” soon she said; ”the white silk shawl she is netting for me may be needed at any moment to lay me out in.”

”Dear me, Aunt Pen!” cried Mel; ”what a picture you'd be, laid out in a white net shawl!” For the doctor had told us to laugh at these whims all we might.

”Oh, you heartless girl!” said Aunt Pen. ”To think of pictures at such a time!” And she closed her eyes as if weary of the world.

”I never saw anybody who liked to revel in the ghastly the way you do, Aunt Pen.”

”Mel!” said Aunt Pen, with quite a show of color in her cheek; ”I shall send you down stairs.”

”Do,” said Mel; ”where I can cut out my gown in peace.”

”Cutting a gown at the bedside of the dying! Are you cold-blooded, or are you insensible?”

”Aunt Pen,” said Mel, leaning on the point of her scissors, ”you know very well that I have to make my own dresses or go without them. And you have kept me running your idle errands, up and down two flights of stairs, to the doctor's and the druggist's, and goodness knows where and all, till I haven't a thread of any thing that is fit to be seen.

You've been posturing this grand finale of yours, too, all the last three weeks, and it's time you had it perfect now; and you must let me alone till I get my gown done.”

”It will do to wear at my funeral,” said Aunt Pen bitterly, as she concluded.

”No, it won't,” said Mel, doggedly; ”it's red.”

”Red!” cried Aunt Pen, suddenly opening her eyes, and half raising on one hand. ”What in wonder have you bought a red dress for? You are quite aware that I can't bear the least intimation of the color. My nerves are in such a state that a shred of red makes me--”

”You won't see it, you know,” said Mel in what did seem to me an unfeeling manner.

”No,” said Aunt Pen. ”Very true. I sha'n't see it. But what,” added she presently snapping open her eyes, ”considered as a mere piece of economy, you bought a red dress for when you are immediately going into black, pa.s.ses common-sense to conjecture! You had better send it down and have it dyed at once before you cut it, for the shrinkage will spoil it forever if you don't.”

”Much black I shall go into,” said Mel.

Maria laughed. Aunt Pen cried.

”Aunt Pen,” said the cruel Mel, ”if you were going to die you wouldn't be crying. Dying people have no tears to shed, the doctors say.”

”Somebody ought to cry,” said poor Aunt Pen, witheringly. ”Don't talk to me about doctors,” she continued, after a silence interrupted only by the snipping of the scissors. ”They are a set of quacks. They know nothing. I will have all the doctors in town at my funeral for pall-bearers. It will be a satire too delicate for them to appreciate, though. Speaking of that occasion, Helen,” she went on, turning to me as a possible ally, ”I have so many friends that I suppose the house will be full.”

”Wouldn't you enjoy it more from church, auntie?” said I.

”Oh, you hard and wicked girls!” she cried. ”You're all alike. Listen to me! If you won't hear my wishes, you must take my commands. Now, in the first place, I want the parlors to be overflowing with flowers, literally lined with flowers. I don't care how much money it takes; there'll be enough left for you--more than you deserve. And I want you to be very sure that I'm not to be exposed unless I look exactly as I'd like to look. You're to put on my white silk that I was to have been married in, and my veil, and the false orange blossoms. They're all in the third drawer of the press, and the key's on my chatelaine. And if--if--well,” said Aunt Pen, more to herself than us, ”if he comes, he'll understand. The Bride of Death.”

After that she did not say any more for some minutes, and we were all silent and sorry, and Mel was fidgeting in a riot of repentance; we had never, either of us, heard a word of any romance of Aunt Pen's before.

We began to imagine that there might be some excuse for the overthrow of Aunt Pen's nervous system, some reality in the overthrow. ”You will leave this ring on my finger;” said she; by-and-by. ”If Chauncey Read comes, and wants it, he will take it off. It will fit his finger as well now, I suppose, as it did when he wore it before he gave it to me.” Then Aunt Pen bit her lip and shut her eyes, and seemed to be slipping off into a gentle sleep.

”By-the-way!” said she, suddenly, sitting upright on the lounge, ”I won't have the horses from Brown's livery--

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