He told me that she died Christmas night. She came to his house
on her old mare, in the rain and snow the night before, to get him to go
to see someone, some "friend" of hers who was sick. He said she had more
sick friends than anyone he ever knew; he told her that he was sick himself
and could not go; but she was so importunate that he promised to go
next morning (she was always very worrying). He said she was wet
and shivering then (she never had any idea about really protecting herself),
and that she appeared to have a wretched cold. She had been riding all day
seeing about a Christmas-tree for the poor children. He urged her to stop
and spend the night, but she insisted that she must go on, though it was
nearly dark and raining hard, and the roads would have mired a cat
(she was always self-willed). Next day he went to see the sick woman,
and when he arrived he found her in one bed and Cousin Fanny in another,
in the same room. When he had examined the patient, he turned and
asked Cousin Fanny what was the matter with her. "Oh, just a little cold,
a little trouble in the chest, as Theodore Hook said," she replied.
"But I know how to doctor myself." Something about her voice struck him.
He went over to her and looked at her, and found her suffering from
acute pneumonia. He at once set to work on her. He took the other patient
up in his arms and carried her into another room, where he told her that
Cousin Fanny was a desperately ill woman. "She was actually dying then, sir,"
he said to me, "and she died that night. When she arrived at the place
the night before, which was not until after nine o'clock,
she had gone to the stable herself to put up her old mare,
or rather to see that she was fed -- she always did that --
so when she got into the house she was wet and chilled through,
and she had to go to bed. She must have had on wet clothes," he said.

I asked him if she knew she was going to die. He said he did not think
she did; that he did not tell her, and she talked about nothing