“Ellen, I am going to tell you something mournful. It was that I came to tell Mrs. Judson last night, but you must not let the other servants know. Miss Louisa is dead.”
“Dead! and you talked as if you had never seen her, last night. Dear me, dead!”
“Yes, sudden—cholera—taken down and died before help could come. The poor lady up-stairs is dreadfully cut up.”
“Dear me, how dreadful!”
“But above all things, don’t hint to the servants that she died of cholera; the funeral will have to be from the house, you know, and the neighbors might get frightened.”
“Oh! I wouldn’t for the world,” protested Ellen,—“not for the world.”
“Now, not a word of this to any one in the house,” Jane went on impressively, “your lady would not like to have the boarding-school spoken of.”
“But what school was it?”
“Oh, Catholic; those Catholics keep their scholars so close; besides, this idea of cholera might hurt the school. Least said, soonest mended. I don’t suppose they let the scholars know what she died of.”
“I am glad she died in the true faith, any way,” said Ellen, just then remembering that she was a Catholic herself, and making a quick motion of the cross. “You and I don’t want to bring trouble on a Catholic school.”