"They'll kill me, I know they will!" moaned Elsie.
Elizabeth did not pay the slightest attention to her complaints, and she relapsed into silence. Finally, her eye was caught by the luncheon temptingly laid out. There lay a mould of delicious apricot jelly in a dish of cut crystal, shining like a great oval-shaped wedge of amber; the cold chicken was arranged in the daintiest of slices, and there was custard-cake, Elsie's special favorite.
She made an effort to fancy herself disgusted at the bare sight of food, and turned away her head, but it was only to encounter the fragrant odor from the little silver teapot, which Victoria had set upon the hearth.
"Could you eat anything, Elizabeth?" she said, dejectedly.
"No, no; I am not hungry."
"But you never touched a morsel of breakfast, and you ate nothing all yesterday."
"I can't eat now—indeed I can't," was Elizabeth's reply.
"Oh, nor I!" moaned Elsie. "I feel as if a single mouthful would choke me."
She glanced again at the tray, and began to moan and weep.
"Oh, dear me! This day never will be over! Oh, I wish I were dead, I do truly! Do say something, Bessie; don't act so."