"Maybe she's goin', as she says she is; but I think maybe she ain't."
"Where is she?" said Elizabeth jumping up.
"In here," said Clam. "She won't die out of the kitchen."
Elizabeth threw on her dressing-gown and hurried out; thinking by the way that she had got into a thorn forest of difficulties, and wishing the daylight would look through. Karen was sitting before the fire, wrapped up in shawls, in the rocking-chair.
"What's the matter, Karen?"
Karen's reply was to break forth into a tremulous scrap of her old song, —
"'I'm going, — I'm going, — I'm going, —'"
"Stop," said Elizabeth. "Don't sing. Tell me what's the matter."
"It's nothin' else, Miss Lizzie," said the old woman. "I'm goin' — I think I be."
"Why do you think so? How do you feel?"