"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. Well, so you see I may as well give
up fighting against it and die at once. I am only a burden and anxiety to
you--I may as well die at once and go to sleep."
"Don't, Jeannie! don't!" said her sister, in a sort of cry; "you are
killing me!"
Jeannie laid her hot hand upon Augusta's arm, "Try and listen to me,
dear," she said, "even if it hurts, because I do so want to say
something. Why should you be so frightened about me? Can any place that I
can go be worse than this place? Can I suffer more pain anywhere, or be
more hurt when I see you crying? Think how wretched it has all been.
There has only been one beautiful thing in our lives for years and years,
and that was your book. Even when I am feeling worst--when my chest
aches, you know--I grow quite happy when I think of what the papers wrote
about you: the _Times_ and the _Saturday Review_, and the _Spectator_,
and the rest of them.
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