Page:Oliver Twist (1838) vol. 2.djvu/88

76 hear her reply, but drew back instinctively as she once again rose slowly and stiffly into a sitting posture, and, clutching the coverlet with both hands, muttered some indistinct sounds in her throat, and fell lifeless on the bed.

"Stone dead!" said one of the old women, hurrying in as soon as the door was opened.

"And nothing to tell, after all," rejoined the matron, walking carelessly away.

The two crones were to all appearance too busily occupied in the preparations for their dreadful duties to make any reply, and were left alone hovering about the body.