"Has the _Saturday Gazette_ come? Let's hear the little gossip of the town. Who is going out of it, who is coming in, who played euchre at Mrs. So and So's, and who won first prize, and who has a new baby."
There were other things--a column about some wonderful exhumations in Arizona that were indications of a pre-historic people.
"Queer," she commented when Helen had finished, "but everywhere it seems as if cities were built on the ruins of old cities. And no one knows the thousands of years the world has stood. There is a theory that we come back to life every so often, that some component part of us doesn't die. Still, I do not see the use if one can't remember."
"But there is--heaven----" Helen was a little awe-struck at the unorthodox views.
"Well--no one has come back from heaven. I believe there are several cases of trances where people thought they were there, and had to come back, and were very miserable over it. But it seems to me being here is the best thing we know about. I feel as if I should like to live hundreds of years, if I could be well and have my faculties."
"There's Auntie Briggs, as they call her, over to Center, who is ninety-seven, and grandmother White was ninety-five on Christmas day."
"Tell me about them. Are they well? Do they get about?"
"Grandmother White is spry as a cricket, as people say. She sews and knits and doesn't wear glasses."
"That's something like." The incident cheered her amazingly. "And the other old lady?"
"She is quite deaf and walks about with a cane, but I think she's pretty well." Helen did not say she was cross and crabbed and a trial to her grand-daughter's family. It really was sad to live past the time when people wanted you. But couldn't you be sweet and comforting? Must old age be queer and disagreeable?
"I shall try to live to a hundred," said Mrs. Van Dorn. "Let me see--I wish you'd read something bright, about people having good times. Why do writers put so much sorrow in stories? It is bad enough to have it in the world."
Helen ran up and brought down a pile of novels that Mr. Disbrowe had selected in the city. But one did not suit and another did not suit.
"We will look at the sun going down. What wonderful sunsets I have seen!"