"Maybe we shall and maybe we sha'n't," said Miss Hitty, grimly. "Some folks 'll never see the beautiful shore. They'll go to the bad place."
Araminta lifted her great, grey, questioning eyes. "Why?" she asked, simply.
"Because they've been bad," answered Miss Hitty, defiantly.
"But if they didn't know any better?" queried Araminta, threading her needle. "Would they go to the bad place just because they didn't know?"
Miss Mehitable squirmed in her chair, for never before had Araminta spoken thus. "There's no excuse for their not knowin'," she said, sharply.
"Perhaps not," sighed Araminta, "but it seems dreadful to think of people being burned up just for ignorance. Do you think I'll be burned up, Aunt Hitty?" she continued, anxiously. "There's so many things I don't know!"
Miss Mehitable set herself firmly to her task. "Araminta Lee," she said, harshly, "don't get to bothering about what you don't know. That's the sure way to perdition. I've told you time and time again what's right for you to believe and what's right for you to do. You walk in that path and turn neither to the right nor the left, and you won't have no trouble--here or anywheres else."
"Yes, Aunt Hitty," said the girl, dutifully. "It must be awful to be burned."
Miss Mehitable looked about her furtively, then drew her chair closer to Araminta's. "That brings to my mind something I wanted to speak to you about, and I don't know but what this is as good a chance as any. You know where I told you to go the other day with the tray, and to set it down at the back door, and rap, and run?"
"Yes." Araminta's eyes were wide open now. She had wondered much at her mysterious errand, but had not dared to ask questions.
"Well," continued Aunt Hitty, after an aggravating pause, "the woman that lives in that house has been burnt."
Araminta gasped. "Oh, Aunt Hitty, was she bad? What did she do and how did she get burned before she was dead?"
Miss Mehitable brushed aside the question as though it were an annoying fly. "I don't want it talked of," she said, severely. "Evelina Grey was a friend of mine, and she is yet. If there's anything on earth I despise, it's a gossip. People who haven't anything better to do than to go around prying into other folks's affairs are better off dead, I take it. My mother never permitted me to gossip, and I've held true to her teachin'." Aunt Hitty smoothed her skirts with superior virtue and tied a knot in her thread.
"How did she get burned?" asked Araminta, eagerly.