"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.
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