"Goodness me!" were her first words. "Whatever have you been doing to yourself, Miss Delamere? You are thin!"
"I've had appendicitis," said Maggy.
Mrs. Bell's face immediately indicated the thirsty interest which people of her class take in any form of illness. She closed the door carefully. A hushed note came into her voice.
"Appendicitis! What did they find?"
"Latchkey and a bath mat," said Maggy solemnly.
Mrs. Bell looked offended, also disappointed.
"What a one you always were for jokes," she complained. "I believe you'd joke in your coffin. Talking of coffins—"
"I hope you've not been talking of such things to Miss Hersey," Maggy interrupted.
"Not talk about them? And she just come back from a funeral! What else would any one talk about? Not that she said much, mind you. I only know there was a carriage-full of wreaths besides what was in the hearse. I'll have to wait for the rest of it in the Sunday paper. Miss Hersey wouldn't say what the corpse looked like."
Mrs. Bell was wound up. Maggy knew that the only way to avoid a repetition of the ghoulish verbosity from which Alexandra must already have suffered was to get away.