“I cannot feel that she is going to die,” she thought, “but rather as if she were going to meet the people she knew long ago; it will be a festival for them.” She looked down the road, and strained her ears, but there was no sound of a carriage, no sign of Walter and Florence. She could hardly realize that she was watching for the Hibberts and that Aunt Anne upstairs lay dying. “It is all such a tangle,” she said to herself, “life and death, and joy and sorrow, and which is best it is difficult to say.” Aunt Anne’s little breakfast was ready, and she carried it up herself, and lovingly watched the old lady trying to swallow a spoonful. “You look a little better again, Aunt Anne.” “Yes, love; and I shall be much better when I have seen those dear children. I am not quite happy about my will. I wanted you to have some remembrance of me.” “Give me something,” Mrs. North said, “something you have worn; I shall like that better than a legacy, because I shall have it from your own two living hands.” “I have parted with all my possessions, but Florence and Walter shall be commissioned to get you something.” “The thing I should have liked,” Mrs. North answered, “was a little brooch you used to wear. It had hair in the middle, and a crinkly gold setting around it.” “My dear,” said Aunt Anne, dreamily, “it is in a little box in my left-hand drawer; but it needs renovating—the pin is broken, and the glass and the hair have come out. It belonged to my mother.” “Give it to me,” Mrs. North said eagerly. “I will have it done up, and wear it till you are better, and then you shall have it back; let me get it at once”—and in her eager manner she went to the drawer. “Here it is,” she said. “It will make a little gold buckle. I have a canary-coloured ribbon in the next room; I will put it through, and wear it round my neck. Aunt Anne, you have made me a present.” “I am delighted that it meets with your approval, my dear”—and there was a long silence. The morning dragged on—a happy spring morning, on which, as Mrs. North said to herself, you could almost hear the summer walking to you over the little flowers. Presently Aunt Anne called her. “I was thinking,” she said, “of a canary-coloured dress I had when I was a girl. I wore it at my first ball—it was a military ball, my dear, and the officers were all in uniform. As soon as I entered the room, Captain Maxwell asked me to dance; but I felt quite afraid, and said, ‘You must take off your sword, if you please, and put it on one side.’ Think of my audacity in asking him to do such a thing; but he did it. Your ribbon made me remember it”—and again she dropped off to sleep.