'Being asleep is being dead.... I daresay people would be more afraid of dying if they were not so used to go to sleep. When I am dying--I daresay I shall die about seventeen--I shall send for John Morgan, and George will come from Eton, and Aunt Sarah will be crying, and, perhaps, mamma and Captain Palmer will be there; and I shall hold all their hands in mine and say, "Now be friends, for my sake." And then I shall urge George to exert himself more, and go to church on week-days; and then to Aunt Sarah I shall turn with a sad smile, and say, "Adieu! dear aunt, you never understood me--you fancied me a child when I had the feelings of a woman, and you sneered at me, and sent me to bed at eight o'clock. Do not crush George and Rhoda as you have crushed me: be gentle with them;" and then I shall cross my hands over my chest and--and what then?' And a sort of shock came over the girl as, perhaps for the first time in her life, she realised the awful awakening. 'Suppose they bury me alive? It is very common, I know--oh! no, no, no; that would be too horrible! Suppose that poor young lady is not dead downstairs--suppose she is alive, and they bury her to-morrow, and she wakes up, and it is all dark, and she chokes and cries out, and nobody hears.... Surely they will take precautions?--they will make sure.... Who will, I wonder? Not that wicked husband--not that horrid maid. That wicked man has gone to gamble, I daresay; and Julie is trying on her dresses, and perhaps her eyes are opening now and nobody to see--nobody to come. Ah! this is dreadful. I must go to sleep and forget it.' Little Rhoda turned and whispered something in her dreams; Dorothy curled herself up in her nest and shut her eyes, and did go to sleep for a couple of hours, and then woke up again with a start, and thought it must be morning. Had not somebody called her by name? did not somebody whisper Dolly in her ear? so loud that it woke her out of a strange dream: a sort of dream in which strange clanging sounds rung round and round in the air; in which Dolly herself lay powerless, gasping and desperate on her bed. Vainly she tried to move, to call, to utter; no one came.