least fear of interruption. "Oh! Susan, I have wanted so to see you! I have been so melancholy shut up at home," cried Letty; "and when I wanted to come out, mamma would not let me. I do not mind being ill. Why should not I die young like my cousin Mary? I think it must be very sweet to die young, when everybody will be sorry for you--oh, Susan, don't you?" "I--don't--know," said poor Susan, who thought this was a great sign of Letty's superiority, and scarcely liked to confess her own worldlymindedness. "No; I should think it rather hard to die if I had a great many people who loved me like you." "Ah, people may love one--but then, perhaps, they don't understand one," said Letty. "Mamma would not let me go to the Sabbath school, because she thought I might take cold! Ah, Susan, do you think that is an excuse that will do at the Judgment?--perhaps I might have said something to one of the children which she never would have forgotten all her life--and to think of the opportunity being lost, for fear I might take cold! I am sometimes afraid," said Letty, with a deep mysterious sigh, "that God will think it necessary, for poor papa and mamma's sake, that I should die very early; for I am so frightened that they are making an idol of me. We ought not to love anyone so very much, you know." "I think I would not mind how much anyone loved me," said Susan, with a little boldness; "the more the better, I think; for indeed I am sure, Letty, that the Bible never says anywhere that it is sinful to be very, _very_ fond of one's friends." "We must never make idols of them," said Letty; "and when I see how mamma takes care of me, I tremble for her. I should not mind it at all myself, but she would be so lonely if I were to die." "Oh, Letty, for pity's sake, do not speak of it!" cried Susan. "Why shouldn't I speak of it? I feel quite sure that people who feel like me never live long," said Letty. "I am going to write my will in poetry, Susan--I did one verse the other night. I think it is rather a nice idea--it is about putting flowers on my grave." "Oh, Letty, do be quiet!--for your mamma's sake!" cried Susan, in terror and dismay, holding fast by her friend's arm, as if afraid to see her vanish into the impalpable air. Letty was not at all inclined, having made so great an impression, to give up the subject, and was about to resume it in a still more pathetic tone, when Susan, stimulated by her own livelier meditations, made an animated diversion.