"Oh don't, my good soul, oh don't! How can you? Let us live, Miss Valence, let us live while we can, and not think of such dreadful things. You make my blood run cold."
"But, Mrs. Shelfer, surely you know that we all must die."
"Of course, my good friend, of course. But then you needn't remind one of it. I met Doctor Franks to-day, and he said, 'Why, Mrs. Shelfer, I do declare, you look younger than ever,' and a very clever man he is, yes, yes; and not a gray hair in my head, and my father lived to eighty-eight."
"And how old are you, Mrs. Shelfer, now?"
"Oh I am sure I don't know, Miss Valence, I don't keep no account. Let us talk of something else. Did you hear what Tom did to your Judy to-day?"
Ah, poor little thing! But I am not going to moralise. Shall I ever know the history of that marrow bone?[#]
[#] I have now ascertained that a roving dog popped in and away with the marrow bone, sovereigns, guineas, and all.--C.V. 1864.
CHAPTER XIII.
Tossil's Barton, estimating the British Post by the standard of Joe Queen's boy, placed but little confidence in that institution. Moreover, Tossil's Barton held that a "papper scrawl," as it termed a letter, was certain to be lost for want of size, unless it were secured in something large, "something as a man can zee and hold on to," as the farmer himself expressed it.
Therefore I was not surprised at receiving, instead of a letter by post, a packet delivered by the parcels van. This packet was bound round like the handle of a whip. and stuck at either end with a mass of cobbler's wax. bearing the vivid impress of a mighty thumb. Within the wrappings first appeared an ominous crumpled scroll. Ye stars, where angels so buffooned by eminent painters dwell! Once more I behold Eli on the turnpike gate, the Great Western steamer, Job with a potsherd of willow-pattern plate, the Prodigal Son, and worse than all, that hideous Death and the Lady. Recklessly I tumble out all the rest of the packet. Three great bolts with silver clasps, three apostle spoons, two old silver salt-cellars marked W.H.J.H., a child's christening cup, a horn tobacco-stopper with a silver tip, an agate from the beach, a tortoise-shell knife with a silver blade, half a dozen coins and a bronze fibula found upon the farm, an infant's coral, a neck-pin garnished with a Bristol diamond, a number of mother-of-pearl buttons and blue beads, and a mass of mock jewelry bought by the farmer from the Cheapjacks at Barum fair with the produce of his wrestling triumphs. Separate from the rest, and packed most carefully, were all but two of the trinkets I had sent as Christmas gifts for the family.