Both of them were, although unconsciously, on the very eve of dissolution, and it would seem as if a kind of presentiment of death had seized upon both at the same time.
"Nannie," said Grace, "do you know that I'm afeard we're both goin' to die ?" "And why are you afeard of it ?" asked Nannie.

"Many a time I would 'a given the world to die." "Why," replied Grace, who saw the deep shadows of death upon her wild, pale, but still beautiful countenance,--"why Nannie, you have your wish--you are dying this moment." Just as Grace spoke the unfortunate girl seemed as if she had been stricken by a spasm of the heart.

She gave a slight start--turned up her beautiful, but melancholy eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, as if conscious of the moment that had come,-- "Forgive me, O God!" after which she laid herself calmly down by the side of Grace and expired.

Grace, by an effort, put her hand out and felt her heart, but there was no pulsation there--it did not beat, and she saw by the utter lifelessness of her features that she was dead, and had been relieved at last from all her sorrows.
"Nannie," she said, "your start before me won't be long.

I do not wish to live to show a shamed face and a ruined character to my family and the world.