according to his hospitable habit, but came slow and sorrowfully;
also I remembered that he had not visited Jean’s apartment since
the tragedy. Poor fellow, did he know? I think so. Always when
Jean was abroad in the open he was with her; always when she was
in the house he was with her, in the night as well as in the day.
Her parlor was his bedroom. Whenever I happened upon him on the
ground floor he always followed me about, and when I went
upstairs he went too–in a tumultuous gallop. But now it was
different: after patting him a little I went to the library–he
remained behind; when I went upstairs he did not follow me, save
with his wistful eyes. He has wonderful eyes–big, and kind, and
eloquent. He can talk with them. He is a beautiful creature,
and is of the breed of the New York police-dogs. I do not like
dogs, because they bark when there is no occasion for it; but I
have liked this one from the beginning, because he belonged to
Jean, and because he never barks except when there is occasion–
which is not oftener than twice a week.
In my wanderings I visited Jean’s parlor. On a shelf I
found a pile of my books, and I knew what it meant. She was
waiting for me to come home from Bermuda and autograph them, then
she would send them away. If I only knew whom she intended them
for! But I shall never know. I will keep them. Her hand has
touched them–it is an accolade–they are noble, now.
And in a closet she had hidden a surprise for me–a thing I
have often wished I owned: a noble big globe. I couldn’t see it
for the tears. She will never know the pride I take in it, and
the pleasure. Today the mails are full of loving remembrances
for her: full of those old, old kind words she loved so well,
“Merry Christmas to Jean!” If she could only have lived one day
longer!
At last she ran out of money, and would not use mine. So
she sent to one of those New York homes for poor girls all the
clothes she could spare–and more, most likely.
CHRISTMAS NIGHT.–This afternoon they took her away from her
room. As soon as I might, I went down to the library, and there
she lay, in her coffin, dressed in exactly the same clothes she
wore when she stood at the other end of the same room on the 6th
of October last, as Clara’s chief bridesmaid. Her face was
radiant with happy excitement then; it was the same face now,
with the dignity of death and the peace of God upon it.
They told me the first mourner to come was the dog. He came
uninvited, and stood up on his hind legs and rested his fore paws
upon the trestle, and took a last long look at the face that was
so dear to him, then went his way as silently as he had come.
HE KNOWS.
At mid-afternoon it began to snow. The pity of it–that
Jean could not see it! She so loved the snow.
The snow continued to fall. At six o’clock the hearse drew
up to the door to bear away its pathetic burden. As they lifted
the casket, Paine began playing on the orchestrelle Schubert’s
“Impromptu,” which was Jean’s favorite. Then he played the
Intermezzo; that was for Susy; then he played the Largo; that was
for their mother. He did this at my request. Elsewhere in my
Autobiography I have told how the Intermezzo and the Largo came
to be associated in my heart with Susy and Livy in their last
hours in this life.
From my windows I saw the hearse and the carriages wind
along the road and gradually grow vague and spectral in the
falling snow, and presently disappear. Jean was gone out of my
life, and would not come back any more. Jervis, the cousin she
had played with when they were babies together–he and her
beloved old Katy–were conducting her to her distant childhood
home, where she will lie by her mother’s side once more, in the