Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/325

Rh "Yes, they's a wondrous pair, them two. They's pretty nigh sanctified, I reckon."

The coroner's verdict was "Death by accident." The accident being falling down the steps and breaking her neck. What she was doing up in the attic, attired in strings of beads, with the strange headdress, was none of the coroner's business and he did not attempt to solve the riddle.

Aunt Peachy's descendants down to the fourth and fifth generation came and carried the shrunken corpse to her house in The Quarters. There she lay in state until the following Sunday. Everybody had heard of Mam' Peachy and many were the excursions to view the remains.

"Mam' Peachy air sech a pop'lar corp," Old Abe explained to Philip, "that we is done decided ter charge ter view the remainders. Young Abe thought a nickel wa' enough, but I 'lowed it wa' kinder lowerin' er my mother's 'portance ter chawge only a nickel, so I done put it ter a dime. I ain't los' none by it, either."

Rolfe Bolling took the death of his old nurse quite calmly, much to the relief of his family. He was in a strangely placid state of mind. He seemed like a child who had finally got the whipping he had needed, had accepted his pun-