"Tell me how you are," continued the girl, kneeling beside the chair and taking the withered hands gently in her own. "Do you suffer any? And are you getting better, dear aunt, in this beautiful garden with the birds and the sunshine?"
"Get up," said the elder woman, roughly. "You're spoiling your gown."
Louise laughed gaily.
"Never mind the gown," she answered. "Tell me about yourself. I've been so anxious since your last letter."
Aunt Jane's countenance relaxed a trifle. To speak of her broken health always gave her a sort of grim satisfaction.
"I'm dying, as you can plainly see," she announced. "My days are numbered, Louise. If you stay long enough you can gather wild flowers for my coffin."
Louise flushed a trifle. A bunch of butter-cups and forget-me-nots was fastened to her girdle, and she had placed a few marguerites in her hair.
"Don't laugh at these poor things!" she said, deprecatingly. "I'm so fond of flowers, and we find none growing wild in the cities, you know."
Jane Merrick looked at her reflectively.
"How old are you, Louise," she asked.