'I don't want his watch, I want a much bigger one. Aunt Betty, was that lady as ugly when she was alive as she is now?'
'Godfrey, that isn't a kind thing to say. People have been cruel to her—you wouldn't be pretty if your nose was off; and besides, she is dead, and it isn't right to speak so about her.'
'What killed her?' asked Godfrey gravely.
'Well, of course, we don't know for certain, but your Aunt Angelica and I feel almost sure she died young. You see she was Miss Jane, she wasn't married, and we have always had an idea that she died of a broken heart.'
'What broke it?' said Godfrey's interested voice.
'Of course I don't know for certain; but she was a maiden, you see—'demoiselle' means a maiden—and she may have been a maiden aunt—there's no reason why she shouldn't have been—and her nephew may have broken her heart by his bad ways.'
'What did he do?' asked Godfrey earnestly.
'It may have been what he didn't do,' said Betty impressively. 'Not learning things that were for his good, and—and that sort of thing.'
'When people's hearts break do you hear them crack?' was the next question.
'No, you don't hear anything,' said Betty solemnly; 'the people get paler and paler and thinner and thinner every day, till at last they die.'