ut, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had
endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the
brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last on the vine. Still dark
green near its stem, but with its serrated edges tinted with the
yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from a branch some
twenty feet above the ground.

"It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall
during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall
die at the same time."

"Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow,
"think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"

But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is
a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey.
The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties
that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.

The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the
lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with
the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the
rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low
Dutch eaves.

When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the
shade be raised.

The ivy leaf was still there.

Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to
Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.

"I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that
last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to
want to die. You may bring me a little broth now, and some milk with
a little port in it, and--no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then
pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."

An hour later she said.

"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."

The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into
the hallway as he left.

"Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in
his. "With good nursing you'll win. And now I must see another case
I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is--some kind of an artist, I
believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is
acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day
to be made more comfortable."

The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You've
won. Nutrition and care now--that's all."

And that after