Then, after supper, when the table had been put away, and a fresh fire had been made on the great stone hearth, Ellen would sit in a little rocking-chair by her aunt’s side, and read aloud some interesting story, while Martha sat knitting on the settle, at the other side of the fire, and Hugh, on a bench in the corner, occupied himself with making clothes-pins, or shaping teeth for rakes, or fitting handles into tools, or some other work of that kind. Hugh found that unless he had such work to do, he always fell asleep while Ellen was reading. Ellen found that her aunt, instead of growing better, rather grew worse. She was very pale, though very delicate and beautiful. Her fingers were very long, and white, and tapering. Ellen thought that they grew longer and more tapering every day. At last, one winter evening, just after tea, and before Hugh and Martha had come in to sit down, Ellen went up to the sofa, and kneeling down upon a little bear-skin rug which was there, and which had been put there to look warm and comfortable, although the poor invalid could never put her feet upon it, she bent down over her aunt and said, “It seems to me Aunt Anne, that you don’t get better very fast.” The patient, putting her arm over Ellen’s neck, and drawing Ellen down closely to her, kissed her, but did not answer. “Do you think you shall ever get well, aunty?” said Ellen. “No,” said her aunt, “I do not think that I shall. I think that before a great while I shall die.” “Why, aunty!” said Ellen. She was much shocked to hear such a declaration. “I _hope_ you will not die,” she continued presently, speaking in a very low and solemn manner. “What shall I do if you should die!—What makes you think that you will die?” “There are two reasons why I think that I shall die,” said her aunt. “One is, that I feel that I am growing weaker and weaker all the time. I have grown a great deal weaker within a few days.” “Have you?” said Ellen, in a tone of great anxiety and concern. “Yes,” said her aunt. “The other reason that makes me think that I am going to die is greater still; and that is I begin to feel so _willing_ to die.” “I thought that you were always willing to die,” said Ellen. “I thought we ought to be all willing to die, always.” “No,” said her aunt, “or yes, in one sense we ought. We ought always to be willing to submit to whatever God shall think best for us. But as to life and death, we ought undoubtedly, when we are strong and well, to desire to live.”