The cause of this little misunderstanding was not far to seek. The old crone had brought up her work: _videlicet_, a winding-sheet all but finished, and certain strips of glazed muslin about three inches deep. She soon completed the winding-sheet, and hung it over two chairs in the patient's sight; she then proceeded to double the slips in six, and nick them; then she unrolled them, and they were frills, and well adapted to make the coming corpse absurd, and divest it of any little dignity the King of Terrors might bestow on it. She was so intent upon her congenial task that she did not observe the sick man had awakened, and was viewing her and her work with an intelligent but sinister eye. "What is that you are making?" said he, grimly. The voice was rather clear, and strong, and seemed so loud and strange in that still chamber, that it startled the woman mightily. She uttered a little shriek, and then was wroth. "Plague take the man!" said she; "how you scared me. Keep quiet, do; and mind your own business." [The business of going off the hooks.] "I ask you what is that you are making," said Griffith, louder, and raising himself on his arm. "Baby's frills," replied the woman, coolly, recovering that contempt for the understandings of the dying which marks the veritable crone. "Ye lie," said Griffith. "And there is a shroud. Who is that for?" "Who should it be for, thou simple body? Keep quiet, do, till the change comes. 'T won't be long now; art too well to last till sundown." "So 't is for me, is it?" screamed Griffith. "I'll disappoint ye yet. Give me my clothes. I'll not lie here to be measured for my grave, ye old witch." "Here's manners!" cackled the indignant crone. "Ye foul-mouthed knave! is this how you thank a decent woman for making a comfortable corpse of ye, you that has no right to die in your shoes, let a be such dainties as muslin neck-ruff, and shroud of good Dutch flax." At this Griffith discharged a volley in which "vulture," "hag," "blood-sucker," etc., blended with as many oaths: during which Mercy came in. She glided to him, with her dove's eyes full of concern, and laid her hand gently on his shoulder. "You'll work yourself a mischief," said she; "leave me to scold her. Why, my good Nelly, how could ye be so hare-brained? Prithee take all that trumpery away this minute: none here needeth it, nor shall not this many a year, please God." "They want me dead," said Griffith to her, piteously, finding he had got one friend, and sunk back on his pillow exhausted. "So it seems," said Mercy, cunningly. "But I'd balk them finely. I'd up and order a beef-steak this minute." "And shall," said Griffith, with feeble spite. "Leastways, do you order it, and I'll eat it: ---- d--n her!" Sick men are like children; and women soon find that out, and manage them accordingly. In ten minutes Mercy brought a good rump-steak to the bedside, and said, "Now for 't. Marry come up, with her winding-sheets!"