Hello, world!
A Christmas Carol
Serena was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of her burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Athena signed it: and Athena’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything she chose to put her hand to. Young Serena was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Serena was as dead as a door-nail.
Athena knew she was dead? Of course she did. How could it be otherwise? Athena and she were partners for I don’t know how many years. Athena was her sole executor, her sole administrator, her sole assign, her sole residuary legatee, her sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Athena was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that she was an excellent lady of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.