" This was the
phrase she always used the next day to her mother when Aunt Harriet
exclaimed about her paleness and the dark rings under her eyes. So she
listened patiently while the little girl told her all about the fearful
dreams she had, the great dogs with huge red mouths that ran after her,
the Indians who scalped her, her schoolhouse on fire so that she had to
jump from a third-story window and was all broken to bits--once in a
while Elizabeth Ann got so interested in all this that she went on and
made up more awful things even than she had dreamed, and told long
stories which showed her to be a child of great imagination. But all
these dreams and continuations of dreams Aunt Frances wrote down the
first thing the next morning, and, with frequent references to a thick
book full of hard words, she tried her best to puzzle out from them
exactly what kind of little girl Elizabeth Ann really was.
There was one dream, however, that even conscientious Aunt Frances never
tried to analyze, because it was too sad. Elizabeth Ann dreamed
sometimes that she was dead and lay in a little white coffin with white
roses over her. Oh, that made Aunt Frances cry, and so did Elizabeth
Ann. It was very touching. Then, after a long, long time of talk and
tears and sobs and hugs, the little girl would begin to get drowsy, and
Aunt Frances would rock her to sleep in her arms, and lay her down ever
so quietly, and slip away to try to get a little nap herself before it
was time to get up.
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