`` It does n't always . I spent a gruesome night in an old country farmhouse last summer . The roof leaked and the rain came pattering down on my bed . There was no poetry in THAT . I had to get up in the ` mirk midnight ' and chivy round to pull the bedstead out of the drip -- and it was one of those solid , old-fashioned beds that weigh a ton -- more or less . And then that drip-drop , drip-drop kept up all night until my nerves just went to pieces . You 've no idea what an eerie noise a great drop of rain falling with a mushy thud on a bare floor makes in the night . It sounds like ghostly footsteps and all that sort of thing . What are you laughing over , Anne ? '' `` These stories . As Phil would say they are killing -- in more senses than one , for everybody died in them . What dazzlingly lovely heroines we had -- and how we dressed them ! `` Silks -- satins -- velvets -- jewels -- laces -- they never wore anything else . Here is one of Jane Andrews ' stories depicting her heroine as sleeping in a beautiful white satin nightdress trimmed with seed pearls . '' `` Go on , '' said Stella . `` I begin to feel that life is worth living as long as there 's a laugh in it . '' `` Here 's one I wrote . My heroine is disporting herself at a ball ` glittering from head to foot with large diamonds of the first water . ' But what booted beauty or rich attire ? ` The paths of glory lead but to the grave . '
They must either be murdered or die XXXXX a broken heart .
As at in like of on than that to until