My house has been long put in order, as far as the
small earthly concerns require it; but who shall say that their
account with, Heaven is sufficiently revised?"
"After what you have said, aunt," I replied, "perhaps I ought to
take my hat and go away; and so I should, but that there is on
this occasion a little alloy mingled with your devotion. To
think of death at all times is a duty--to suppose it nearer from
the finding an old gravestone is superstition; and you, with your
strong, useful common sense, which was so long the prop of a
fallen family, are the last person whom I should have suspected
of such weakness."
"Neither would I deserve your suspicions, kinsman," answered Aunt
Margaret, "if we were speaking of any incident occurring in the
actual business of human life. But for all this, I have a sense
of superstition about me, which I do not wish to part with. It
is a feeling which separates me from this age, and links me with
that to which I am hastening; and even when it seems, as now, to
lead me to the brink of the grave, and bid me gaze on it, I do
not love that it should be dispelled. It soothes my imagination,
without influencing my reason or conduct."
"I profess, my good lady," replied I, "that had any one but you
made such a declaration, I should have thought it as capricious
as that of the clergyman, who, without vindicating his false
reading, preferred, from habit's sake, his old Mumpsimus to the
modern Sumpsimus.
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