“I’m so sorry, Aunt Ellen.”
“Eh?”
“I’m sorry you’re ill.”
“Are you?” questioned the old woman, searching the girl’s face with her small, flinty eyes. “Mebbe you are. You generally tell the truth. I guess if you do feel so, you’re the only one; an’ I don’t quite see how even you can be.”
“I am.”
Her aunt fingered the sheet nervously.
“You’re a good girl, Lucy,” she presently 204 observed in a weary tone. “You won’t lose nothin’ by it, neither.”
Embarrassed, her niece started from the room.
“Come back here a minute,” muttered the woman drowsily. “I want to speak to you.”
Lucy recrossed the threshold and bent over Ellen, who had sunk back on the pillows and was beckoning to her with a feeble, exhausted hand.