"Harriet Peters would be alive this minute," she remarked "if it hadn't been for Caroline. Taking care of Caroline just about killed Harriet. Think of having to live with _that_ in the house all the time! I do think the Gwynnes are too funny; anybody else, any other set of people under the sun would have sent Caroline to an institution long ago. All these years they've talked about 'poor Carrie,' and made believe she was just an ordinary invalid, when everybody _knew_, and they _knew_ they knew that she's as crazy as a loon." "Oh, no, she isn't that, you know, Kate," said my grandmother mildly. "She's just melancholy." "Fiddle-de-dee, what's the difference? She's as crazy as Arthur; they're all queer, you know it. The Peters boy, Sam, you know, is queer; Clara Vardaman told me so, she's known those children ever since they were born. What do you suppose they'll do with Caroline _now_? There's nobody left, particularly, to look after her; for all their sniffing around about 'poor Carrie,' they'll none of 'em take her, you'll see. I suppose Governor Gwynne's will must have made some provision for her--but then, nobody expected her to outlive all the others. People like that always live forever somehow." Here, as we passed another carriage, Mrs. Oldham's face, which had been wearing a very bright and lively expression, suddenly darkened to one of decent sadness, touched with satisfaction--that expression sacred to the sympathetic friends who gather about at funerals. We have all seen it, and, I dare say, worn it ourselves, more than once. Mrs. Oldham bowed gravely to the other vehicle, and immediately upon its passage, turned to my grandmother with a lightning vivacity. "That was Lulu Gwynne--Lulu Stevens, you know," she said. "How old she's beginning to look, isn't she?"