at her window; but I knew that she was still alive, because I had not seen her set out on that long journey of which she and her friend had so often talked. “Yes,” she had said, “when I shall die, I shall have to take a longer journey than I ever took through my whole life; the family burial-place lies above twenty miles from here; thither must I be borne, and there shall I sleep with the rest of my kin.”
Last night a carriage drew up at her door; they carried out a coffin, and by that I knew that she was dead; they laid straw around the coffin and drove away. There slept the quiet old maid, who for the last year had never been out of her house; and the carriage rattled along the streets and out of the city, as if it had been on a journey of pleasure. Upon the high road it went on yet faster; the fellow who drove looked over his shoulder several times; I fancy that he was afraid of seeing her sitting in her yellow satin upon the coffin behind him; he therefore urged on the horses thoughtlessly, holding them in so tightly that they foamed at the mouth: they were young and full of mettle;
