"No; no friends—not one friend in all this wide world," said the dying woman, in a tone so utterly despairing that Miss Jerusha's hand fell soothingly and pityingly on her forehead.
"Sho, now, sho! I want ter know," said Miss Jerusha, quite unconscious that she was making rhyme, a species of literature she had the profoundest contempt for. "That's too bad, 'clare if it ain't! Are they all dead?"
"I do not know—they are all dead to me."
"Why, what on airth hed you done to them?" said Miss Jerusha, in surprise.
"I married against my father's consent."
"Ah! that was bad; but then he needn't hev made a fuss. He didn't ask your consent when he got married, I s'pose. Didn't like the young man you kept company with, eh?"
"No; he hated him. My father was rich, and I ran off with a poor actor."
"A play-acter! Why, you must hev bin crazy!"
"Oh, I was—I was! I was a child, and did not know what I was doing. I thought my life with him would have been all light, and music, and glitter, and dazzle, such as I saw on the stage; but I soon found out the difference."
"'Spect you did. Law, law! what fools there is in this 'ere world!" said Miss Jerusha, in a moralizing tone.