“Is Frank Lavender below?” said the thin old woman, who was propped up in bed, with some scarlet garment around her, that made her resemble more than ever the cockatoo of which Sheila had thought on first seeing her. “Yes,” said Sheila. “I want to see you alone. I can’t bear him dawdling about a room and staring at things, and saying nothing. Does he speak to you?” Sheila did not wish to enter into any controversy about the habits of her husband, so she said: “I hope you will see him before he goes, Mrs. Lavender. He is very anxious to know how you are, and I am glad to find you looking so well. You do not look like an invalid at all.” “Oh, I’m not going to die yet,” said the little dried old woman, with the harsh voice, the staring eyes, and the tightly twisted gray hair. “I hope you didn’t come to read the Bible to me; you wouldn’t find one about, in any case, I should think. If you like to sit down and read the sayings of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, I should enjoy that; but I suppose you are too busy thinking what dress you’ll wear at my funeral.” “Indeed, I was thinking of no such thing,” said Sheila, indignantly, but feeling all the same that the hard, glittering, expressionless eyes were watching her. “Do you think I believe you?” said Mrs. Lavender. “Bah! I hope I am able to recognize the facts of life. If you were to die this afternoon, I should get a black silk, trimmed with crape, the moment I got on my feet again, and go to your funeral in the ordinary way. I hope you will pay me the same respect. Do you think I am afraid to speak of these things?” “Why should you speak of them?” said Sheila, despairingly. “Because it does you good to contemplate the worst that can befall you, and if it does not happen you may rejoice. And it will happen. I know I shall be lying in this bed, with half a dozen of you around about trying to cry, and wondering which will have the courage to turn and go out of the room first. Then there will be the funeral day, and Paterson will be careful about the blinds, and go about the house on her tip-toes, as if I were likely to hear! Then there will be a pretty service up in the cemetery, and a man who never saw me will speak of his dear sister departed; and then you’ll all go home and have your dinner. Am I afraid of it?” “Why should you talk like that?” said Sheila, piteously. “You are not going to die. You distress yourself and others by thinking of those horrible things.” “My dear child, there is nothing horrible in nature. Everything is part of the universal system which you should recognize and accept. If you had but trained yourself now, by the study of philosophical works, to know how helpless you are to alter the facts of life, and how it is the best wisdom to be prepared for the worst, you would find nothing horrible in thinking of your own funeral. You are not looking well.”