"She is dying," answered the desolate old creature, her voice softening and her dim eyes filling with tears.
"Oh, I trust not. Perhaps something can be done. Can I help you in any way?"
"In all ways if you would," she said, breaking down and beginning to sob weakly, with her head resting on the sill of the carriage-window. "Oh, what have we not been through together, we two! Piece by piece I have sold all."
I am good-hearted enough, but I do not like to have old women weeping across my carriage-door. I suggested, therefore, that she should come inside and let me take her home. Her shabby old skirt was soon beside me, and, following her directions, the driver turned toward one of the most wretched quarters of the city, the abode of poverty, crowded and unclean. Here, in a large bare chamber up many flights of stairs, I found Miss Grief.
As I entered I was startled: I thought she was dead. There seemed no life present until she opened her eyes, and even then they rested upon us vaguely, as though she did not know who we were. But as I approached a light came into them: she recognized me, and this sudden revivification, this return of the soul to the almost deserted bod, was the most wonderful thing I ever saw. "You have good news of the drama?" she whispered as I bent over her: "tell me. I know you have good news."
What was I to answer? Pray, what would you have answered, puritan?
"Yes, I have good news, Aaronna," I said. "The drama will appear." (And who knows? Perhaps it will in some other world.)
She smiled, and her now brilliant eyes did not leave my face.
"He knows I'm your aunt: I told him," said the old woman, coming to the bedside.
"Did you?" whispered Miss Grief, still gazing at me with a smile. "Then please, dear Aunt Martha, give me something to eat."