'What a promise?'

'O, but you know, ma'am--I mean, it was give to me, and so I
promised. When folks give you things they always expect you
never to take 'em off.'

'Do they?' said Wych Hazel. But then she launched forth into
the account of all the day's distress, electrifying her
listener with some of the fear and excitement so long pent up.
Yet the mill girl's comment was peculiar.

'It does make a person feel very solemn to be so near to
death.'

'Solemn!' cried Wych Hazel. 'Is _that_ all you would feel,
Phoebe?'

'I'm not much afraid of pain, you know, ma'am--and if the fire
took it couldn't last long.'

'But Phoebe;--' she sat straight up on her floury cushions,
looking at the girl's quiet face. 'What do you mean, Phoebe?'--
She could not have told what checked the expression of her
growing wonder.

'O lie down, ma'am, please! Why I only mean,' said Phoebe
speaking with perfect simplicity--'You know God calls us all to
die somehow--and if he called me to die so, it wouldn't make
much difference. I shouldn't think of it when I'd got to
heaven.'