"Not a hypocrite," said Mel, "but a hypochondriac."
"I wish I were," sighed Aunt Pen; "I wish I were. I should have some hope of myself then," said the poor inconsistent innocent. "Oh no, no; I feel it only too well; I am going fast. You will all regret your disbelief when I am gone;" and she lay back among her pillows. "That reminds me," she murmured, presently. "About my monument."
"Oh, Aunt Pen, do be still," said Mel.
"No," said Aunt Pen, firmly; "it may be a disagreeable duty, but that is all the better reason for me to bring my mind to it. And if I don't attend to it now, it never will be attended to. I know what relatives are. They put down a slab of slate with a skull and cross-bones scratched on it, and think they've done their duty. Not that I mean any reflections on you; you're all well-meaning, but you're giddy. I shall haunt you if you do any thing of the kind! No; you may send Mr. Mason up here this afternoon, and I will go over his designs with him. I am going to have carved Carrara marble, set in a base of polished Scotch granite, and the inscription is—Girls!" cried Aunt Pen, rising and clasping her knees with unexpected energy, "I expressly forbid my age being printed in the paper, or on the lid, or on the stone! I won't gratify every gossip in town, that I won't! I shall take real pleasure in baffling their curiosity. And another thing, while I am about it, don't you ask Tom Maltby to my funeral, or let him come in, if he comes himself, on any account whatever. I should rise in my shroud if he approached me. Yes, I should! Tom Maltby may be all very well; I dare say he is; and I hope I die at peace with him and all mankind, as a good Christian should. I forgive him; yes, certainly, I forgive him; but it doesn't follow that I need forget him; and, so long as I remember him, the way he conducted in buying the pew over my head I can't get over, dead or alive. And if I only do get well we shall have a reckoning that will make his hair stand on end—that he may rely on!" And here Aunt Pen took the fan from Maria, and moved it actively, till she remembered herself, when she resigned it. "One thing more," she said. "Whatever happens, Helen, don't let me be kept over Sunday. There'll certainly be another death in the family within the year if you do. If I die on Saturday, there's no help for it. Common decency won't let you shove me into the ground at once, and so you will have to make up your minds for a second summons." And Aunt Pen, contemplating the suttee of some one of us with great philosophy, lay down and closed her eyes again. "You might have it by torchlight on Sunday night, though," said she, half opening them. "That would be very pretty." And then she dropped off to sleep with such a satisfied expression of countenance that we judged her to be welcoming in imagination the guests at her last rites herself.
Whatever the dream was, she was rudely roused from it by the wreched little Israel, who came bounding up the stairs, and, without word or warning, burst into the room, almost white with horror. Why Israel was afraid I can't conjecture, but, at any rate, a permanent fright would have been of great personal advantage to him. "Oh, ma'am! oh, miss! dere's a pusson down stairs, a cullud woman, wid der small-pox!" he almost whistled in his alarm.
"With the small-pox!" cried Aunt Pen, springing into the middle of the floor, regardless of her late repose in articulo mortis. "Go away, Israel! Have you been near her? Put her out immediately! How on earth did she get there?"
"You allus telled me to let everybody in," chattered Israel.
"Put her out! put her out!" cried Aunt Pen, half dancing with impatience.
"We can't get her out. She's right acrost der door-step. We's feared ter tech her."
But Aunt Pen's head was out of the window, and she was shouting: "Police! fire! murder! thieves!" possibly in the order of importance of the four calamities, but quite as if she had a plenty of breath left; and, for a wonder, the police came to the rescue, and directly afterward an ambulance took the poor victim of the frightful epidemic to the hospital. I believe it turned out to be only measles after all, though.