"Flora's dead!"
The old lady, when she smiled, did so less with her lips than with her faded cheeks. So sweet was her face that you could not help wondering, when you looked on it, how many men had also looked upon it and loved it. Somehow, you never wondered how many of them had been loved in return.
"I'm so sorry, dear," Aunt Rachel, who in reality was a great-aunt, said.
"What did she die of this time?"
"She died of … Brown Titus … 'n now she's going to be buried in a grave as little as her bed."
"In a what, dear?"
"As little … dread … as little as my bed … you say it, Sabrina."
"She means, Aunt Rachel,
"Teach me to live that I may dread The Grave as little as my bed,"
Sabrina, the eldest, interpreted.
"Ah!… But won't you play at cheerful things, dears?"