noon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly
knitting a very blue and very useless woolen shoulder scarf, and put
one arm around her, pillows and all.

"I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman
died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days.
The janitor found him on the morning of the first day in his room
downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet
through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been
on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still
lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some
scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed
on it, and--look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the
wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the
wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece--he painted it
there the night that the last leaf fell."

THE COUNT AND THE WEDDING GUEST

One evening when Andy Donovan went to dinner at his Second Avenue
boarding-house, Mrs. Scott introduced him to a new boarder, a young
lady, Miss Conway. Miss Conway was small and unobtrusive. She wore a
plain, snuffy-brown dress, and bestowed her interest, which seemed
languid, upon her plate. She lifted her diffident eyelids and shot
one perspicuous, judicial glance at Mr. Donovan, politely murmured
his name, and returned to her mutton. Mr. Donovan bowed with the
grace and beaming smile that were rapidly winning for him social,
business and political advancement, and erased the snuffy-brown one
from the tablets of his consideration.

Two weeks later Andy was sitting on the front steps enjoying his
cigar. There was a soft rustle behind and above him, and Andy turned
his head--and had his head turned.

Just coming out the door was Miss Conway. She wore a night-black
dress of _crepe de_--_crepe de_--oh, this thin black goods. Her hat
was black, and from it drooped and fluttered an ebon veil, filmy as
a spider's web. She stood on the top step and drew on black silk
gloves. Not a speck of white or a spot of color about her dress
anywhere. Her rich golden hair was drawn, with scarcely a ripple,
into a shining, smooth knot low on her neck. Her face was plain
rather than pretty, but it was now illuminated and made almost
beautiful by her large gray eyes that gazed above the houses across
the street into the sky with an expression of the most appealing
sadness and mela