ing the "charge" that I was "dying," and saying
"I would not do such a thing at my time of life."

Jean was a little troubled, and did not like to see me treat the matter
so lightly; but I said it was best to treat it so, for there was nothing
serious about it. This morning I sent the sorrowful facts of this day's
irremediable disaster to the Associated Press. Will both appear in this
evening's papers?--the one so blithe, the other so tragic?

I lost Susy thirteen years ago; I lost her mother--her incomparable
mother!--five and a half years ago; Clara has gone away to live in
Europe; and now I have lost Jean. How poor I am, who was once so rich!
Seven months ago Mr. Roger died--one of the best friends I ever had, and
the nearest perfect, as man and gentleman, I have yet met among my race;
within the last six weeks Gilder has passed away, and Laffan--old, old
friends of mine. Jean lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers under
our own roof; we kissed hands good-by at this door last night--and
it was forever, we never suspecting it. She lies there, and I sit
here--writing, busying myself, to keep my heart from breaking. How
dazzlingly the sunshine is flooding the hills around! It is like a
mockery.

Seventy-four years ago twenty-four days ago. Seventy-four years old
yesterday. Who can estimate my age today?

I have looked upon her again. I wonder I can bear it. She looks just
as her mother looked when she lay dead in that Florentine villa so long
ago. The sweet placidity of death! it is more beautiful than sleep.

I saw her mother buried. I said I would never endure that horror again;
that I would never again look into the grave of any one dear to me. I
have kept to that. They will take Jean from this house tomorrow, and
bear her to Elmira, New York, where lie those of us that have been
released, but I shall not follow.

Jean was on the dock when the ship came in, only four days ago. She
was at the door, beaming a welcome, when I reached this house the next
evening. We played cards, and she tried to teach me a new game called
"Mark Twain." We sat chatting cheerily in the library last night, and
she wouldn't let me look into the loggia, where she was making Christmas
preparations. She said she would finish them in the morning, and then
her little French friend would arrive from New York--the surprise would
follow; the surprise she had been working over for days. While she was
out for a moment I disloyally stole a lo