"And how are you, Mrs. Deans?" she asked. Her voice held a strong English accent.
"Oh, well; for which I ought to be thankful," returned Mrs. Deans. "Considering them as is took that is unprepared, we ought to be grateful that we're spared, for it would seem as if them that is ready would go the first. Dan Follett died last Thursday. How do you find yourself, Mrs. Holder?"
"Not well—not at all well," returned the old woman, her voice querulous. "I was took cruel queer last night, a-gasping after breath as wouldn't come. I'm nigh tired enough o' living, if I could die mind-easy, but I can't."
"Yes," said Mrs. Deans, pursing her lips and shaking her head, "we all have our troubles; but you have had a terrible affliction, and, as I have often said to Henry, 'Old Mrs. Holder does take it terrible hard.'"
"It do be hard," said Mrs. Holder. Then came a pause.
Mrs. Deans was in certain ways clever; she knew the futility of attempting to force Mrs. Holder's confidence, therefore she contented herself with a lugubrious shake of her head, a sympathetic expression of eye, and murmured:
"Yes—it's terrible hard!"
"Yes," began Mrs. Holder, almost reflectively, "to think as it should come to me, being afraid o' being buried, due to not knowing who's going to lay along o' me. It do seem main hard"—here the speaker's tones grew hard and her beady eyes venomous—"but I'll find a way somehow. Myron Kind's daughter and her bastard brat don't never lay alongside o' my son and me."
Light now dawned upon Mrs. Deans. She fully appreciated Mrs. Holder's attitude in the matter; she rose to the occasion.
"It's the lot up in the cemetery that's worrying you," she said. "Well, so 'twould me, to think a young one sich as that was going to be next hand, touching me in my grave!"