“I’m ready to die,” she said, “but it wouldn’t be true to say I should want to if I had strength. It’s a muddling old world, but one hates the dark. And I like to know what’s going on. I should have liked to see your new Rose growing up. And that other Rose, poor darling, I don’t like leaving her. And my little Peek, it will be horrid not to be able to pat him and give him his sugar. “Perhaps when we’re dead,” she went on, “we can still watch our friends. If so, you can be very sure I shall be watching you. But don’t worry. I won’t move the furniture or bother you with manifestations. I’ll simply be looking on, and if there’s any means by which a spirit can add to the content of a living friend, you can be sure I shall apply it. But there can’t be,” she added, “or we should all be happier. “It’s a sin,” she said another time, “that all we can leave are our twopenny-halfpenny possessions. Why can’t we leave our brains? I don’t pretend that mine are particularly desirable, but they would be a godsend to that stupid woolly Mrs. Stansted, for example. It’s a pity I can’t hand them on to her.” To the end she kept up her spirit and to the end she teased poor Julia. “Have you ordered your mourning yet?” she asked her once. Julia’s reply was a sound of protest and a sob. “But I want you to. I told you to. All this fuss about a simple little matter like dying is so ridiculous. Don’t you want me to be happy in heaven, Julia?” More sobs. “Now listen. I command you to get your mourning. I want to see if it becomes you. Why shouldn’t I? A young bride is allowed to see the bridesmaids who are to follow her to the church; why should an old widow woman be prevented from seeing what her chief mourner will look like?” Nothing, however, could get Julia to consider death a subject matter for discussion, or as anything but a gaunt, grisly, abnormal happening. “I hope they don’t insist on one’s entering heaven the very instant one dies,” Mrs. O’Gorman said at another time. “That won’t suit me at all. What I want is a really long sleep first—weeks and weeks of it. What do you think, Julia, will they be in such a hurry?” Poor Julia, all this was hard to bear; but when the old lady’s soul and body did at last part company and her will was made public, it was found that the legacy to her faithful companion was ten times larger than she had foreshadowed in conversations. The poor of the village were remembered also, and both the Roses had little mementoes. * * * * *