“I hope I haven’t given you too much trouble, Mrs. Wicket.”

Mrs. Wicket tried to assure Mrs. Grumble that she had not been any trouble to her.  But Mrs. Grumble said weakly: 

“Maybe when I was out of my head . . .”

“Don’t you fret yourself a mite about that,” cried Mrs. Wicket; “for that’s all over.  Now you’re going to get well.”

“No,” said Mrs. Grumble, “no, I’m not going to get well.  I’m going to die.”  She thought over, in silence, what she had just said, and it appeared to satisfy her.  At the thought of death she was calm and willing.  “I remember,” she remarked, “how I used to have a horror of dying.  I was afraid to die, without having done anything to make me out different from anybody else.  But I guess nobody’s any different when it comes to dying, Mrs. Wicket.  It feels easy and natural.”

“Don’t you so much as even think of it,” said Mrs. Wicket.

Mrs. Grumble smiled.  “There’s no use trying to fool me,” she declared.  “I’m not afraid any more.  I’d like to see Mr. Jeminy before I go.  I’d like to know he was in good hands.  I’d like to think you’d look after him a bit, Mrs. Wicket, when I’m gone.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Wicket, “set your mind at rest.”

“You’ve been very kind to me,” said Mrs. Grumble, with difficulty.  “You’ve had a hard time of it here in Hillsboro.  You’re a good woman, Mrs. Wicket.  I’m glad you’ll be here for him when he comes home.  I took care of him for twenty years.  As though he were my own.”

“I’ll care for him the same,” said Mrs. Wicket, “as though he were my own.”

Mrs. Grumble seemed to be content with this promise, for she remained for some time sunk in silence.  At last she said, “He’ll come in time for me to see him again.  He won’t leave me to die alone, not after I took care of him for twenty years.

“I remember the time he brought me a bit of lace from the fair over to Milford.  He used to give me a lot of trouble.  But he didn’t forget to bring me home a piece of lace from the fair.  I put it on my petticoat.

“He’s on his way home now, Mrs. Wicket:  yes, I can feel he’s coming home.”

Mrs. Wicket, who had been up with Mrs. Grumble the night before, let her head droop forward on her breast.  “I don’t doubt it,” she said.  And in the silence of the sickroom, she presently fell asleep.  Mrs. Grumble lay with wide open eyes, staring at the door through which Mr. Jeminy was to come.  She felt quiet and happy; it seemed to her that her pain was already over and done with.  Framed in the doorway, in the yellow lamplight, she beheld the fancies of her youth, the memories of the past.  She saw again the woman she had been, and watched, with eyes filled with compassion, her early sorrows, and the troubles of her later years.  “It was all of no account,” she said to herself, “but it doesn’t matter now.”  And she set herself to wait in patience for Mr. Jeminy, who she never doubted would come to help her die.