ough I knew she was very still.

"By and by one of the nurses came in very soft and lifted up one of her
hands--I had mine over the other. She was a nice girl, that nurse--we
both liked her real well. Dr. Stanchon--the old doctor, not the boy,
here--brought her, and he said to me, 'Now, Mr. Vail, here's the best
nurse in New York: trust her.' And we did. She looked sharp at me,
Miss Jessop did, and listened over her heart, then she put her cheek
down to the lips.

"'Why, she's gone!' she said. 'Mr. Vail, when did it happen?'

"And then she called the doctor and he said yes, she was gone.
_That's_ why I say Mrs. Leeth died."

He looked calmly at me and I found to my surprise that during this
story I had grown as calm as he and had quite forgotten, in my sympathy
for the little man, just why he had begun to tell it. It was most
perplexing. The room had taken on its homely comfort again: the horror
had disappeared.

"So I sat there. The doctor said to let me stay, if I felt so. And I
just saw my whole life pass right by me like pictures in a book--if you
see what I mean. I saw Min when she graduated and Irene playing tunes
to her mamma and me on the piano, and the day the new gold furniture
came in, and Mrs. Leeth leading me by the hand out of mother's room
after I'd sat all day and all night by her....

"And I looked at the face lying so quiet there, and while I looked, it
sort of shook--more like when you throw a little pebble into a
pond--and the eyes opened. And I knew mother was looking at me.
That's all."

Poor, lonely little man! How could I have felt afraid of him? It was
not difficult to see how it had been.

"Then she--Mrs. Leeth--had not really died at all, had she?" I said
hastily, only to bite my lips at my tactlessness.

But he smiled tolerantly.

"That's what they said," he answered quietly. "It was very
interesting, they said. The doctor was pretty hard on Miss Jessop, I
thought. But I guess they always lay it off on them.

"They were all so excited about it, they didn't seem to notice what had
happened. And by and by I saw they never would notice it, anyway. I
just spoke a little about it to Irene and it frightened her, so I kept
quiet. She said she saw Mrs. Leeth was different, somehow, but it was
the sickness, she thought. They had to go right back. He wanted the
baby to be born in Italy. That was all right, of course."

"And Mrs. Leeth--what did _she_ say?"

"Oh, s