She was sitting there, knitting and croaking like an old 'raven of bode and woe' as Walter used to call her.
"'You ain't as bad off as some, Miss Oliver,' she said, 'and you shouldn't take it so hard.

There's some as has lost their husbands; that's a hard blow; and there's some as has lost their sons.

You haven't lost either husband or son.' "'No,' said Gertrude, more bitterly still.

'It's true I haven't lost a husband--I have only lost the man who would have been my husband.

I have lost no son--only the sons and daughters who might have been born to me--who will never be born to me now.' "'It isn't ladylike to talk like that,' said Cousin Sophia in a shocked tone; and then Gertrude laughed right out, so wildly that Cousin Sophia was really frightened.