Presently she was quiet, and lifted it again.

"Gussie, love," she said, "don't be angry, but I want to speak to you.

Listen, my sweet Gussie, my angel.

Oh, Gussie, you don't know how I love you! It is all no good, it is useless struggling against it, I must die sooner or later; though I am only twelve, and you think me such a child, I am old enough to understand that.

I think," she added, after pausing to cough, "that pain makes one old: I feel as though I were fifty.