"Oh, certainly! And, if it could be managed, to live in the country always. And that, I think, is all I should want."
"Let me see: a little room, and work enough to maintain you,—those are positive necessaries; but, when one is merely wishing, there is no harm in adding a few superfluities. Should you not like such nice things as carriages, diamonds, and rich clothes?"
"Not at all! All I wish for is my free and undisturbed liberty,—a country life, and the certainty of not dying in a hospital. Oh, that idea is dreadful! Above all things, I would desire the certainty of its never being my fate. Oh, M. Rodolph, that dread often comes across me and fills me with terror."
"Alas! poor folks, such as we are, should not shrink from such things."
"'Tis not the dying in a charitable institution I dread, or the poverty that would send me into it, but the thoughts of what they do to your lifeless remains."
"What do they do that shocks you so much?"
"Is it possible, M. Rodolph, you have never been told what will become of you if you die in one of those places?"
"No, indeed, I have not; do you tell me."
"Well, then, I knew a young girl, who had been a sort of companion to me when I was in prison; she afterwards died in a hospital, and what do you think? Her body was given to the surgeons for dissection!" murmured the shuddering Fleur-de-Marie.
"That is, indeed, a frightful idea! And do these miserable anticipations often trouble you, my poor girl?"