"What do you mean, Lucy. I see nothing like dying about her."
"I was not thinking of dying, but of something else!" I answered. "However, time will show."
"Lucy! How perfectly absurd!" said Amabel. "When she has been mourning all these years for Mr. Falconer, and has never seen any company."
"Except Doctor Brown!" I added.
"Worse and worse!" returned Amabel, laughing heartily. "Lucy, I believe you are fey yourself. You used not to think so much about matrimony."
"Ah, well, time will show! Let us look at our necklaces!"
Amabel's turned out to be a very rich thick gold chain supporting a fine pendant of amethyst set round with pearls. Mine was a chain of Turkey stones, supporting a locket enameled also with Turkey stones. It opened and had evidently once held a miniature.
"She never gave you that!" almost screamed Mrs. Chloe, when I showed it to her. "Why, it was the gift of Mr. Philip Falconer, and used to have his picture in it. My poor sister! She is not long for this world. My dears!" sinking her voice to a whisper. "Did either of you hear a strange noise last night?"
"I heard the bloodhounds baying as they do every moonlight night—that was all!" answered Amabel.
"Oh! You think it was the bloodhounds? Well, I don't know. To my thinking, it sounded like something else—longer and more dreary."