"Mr. Ringgan is dead."
"Dead!" exclaimed the young man much shocked;--"when? how?"
"Won't you come in, sir?" said Cynthy;--"maybe you'll see Mis' Plumfield."
"No, certainly," replied the visitor. "Only tell me about Mr. Ringgan."
"He died last night."
"What was the matter with him?"
"I don't know," said Cynthy in a business-like tone of voice,--"I s'pose the doctor knows, but he didn't say nothing about it. He died very sudden."
"Was he alone?"
"No--his sister was with him; he had been complaining all the evening that he didn't feel right, but I didn't think nothing of it and I didn't know as he did; and towards evening he went and laid down, and Flidda was with him a spell, talking to him; and at last he sent her to bed and called me in and said he felt mighty strange and he didn't know what it was going to be, and that he had as lieve I should send up and ask Mis' Plumfield to come down, and perhaps I might as well send for the doctor too. And I sent right off, but the doctor wa'n't to hum, and didn't get here till long after. Mis' Plumfield, she come; and Mr. Ringgan was asleep then, and I didn't know as it was going to be anything more after all than just a turn, such as anybody might take; and Mis' Plumfield went in and sot by him; and there wa'n't no one else in the room; and after a while he come to, and talked to her, she said, a spell; but he seemed to think it was something more than common ailed him; and all of a sudden he just riz up half way in bed and then fell back and died,--with no more warning than that."
"And how is the little girl?"