raising his eyes, "but she was
always bright and--and happy. She used to lie on the sofa by the window
and look out and try to make sketches. She could see the Apennines, and
it was the chestnut harvest and the peasants used to pass along the road
on their way to the forests, and she liked to watch them. She used to try
to sketch them too, but she was too weak; and when I wrote home for her,
she made me describe them----"

"In her bright way!" said his mother. "I read the letters over and over
again and they seemed like pictures--like her little pictures. It
scarcely seems as if Lucien could have written them at all."

"The last day," said Latimer, "I had written home to say that she was
better. She was so well in the morning that she talked of trying to take
a drive, but in the afternoon she was a little tired----"

"But only a little," interrupted the mother eagerly, "and quite happy."

"Only a little--and quite happy," said Latimer. "There was a beautiful
sunset and I drew her sofa to the windows and she lay and looked at
it--and talked; and just as the sun went down----"

"All in a lovely golden glory, as if the gates of heaven were open," the
gentle voice added.

Latimer paused for an instant. His sallow face had become paler. He drew
out his handkerchief and touched his forehead with it and his lips.

"All in a glow of gold," he went on a little more hoarsely, "just as it
went down, she turned on her pillow and began to speak to me. She said
'How beautiful it all is, and how glad--,' and her voice died away. I
thought she was looking at the sky again. She had lifted her eyes to it
and was smiling: the smile was on her face when I--bent over her--a few
moments after--and found that all was over."

"It was not like death at all," said his mother with a soft breathlessness.
"She never even knew." And though tears streamed down her cheeks, she
smiled.

Baird rose suddenly and went to Latimer's side. He wore the pale and
bewildered face of a man walking in a dream. He laid his hand on his
shoulder.

"No, it was not like death," he said; "try and remember that."

"I do remember it," was the answer.

"She escaped both death and life," said John Baird, "both death and
life."

The little mother sat wiping her eyes gently.

"It was all so bright to her," she said. "I can scarcely think of it as a
grief that we have lost her--for a little while. Her little room upstairs
never seems empty. I could fancy that