world
where custom stales all things, save Cleopatra, it is all the better
perhaps not to see even too much of Death, lest we grow familiar with
him. For instance, doctors and soldiers, who look on him daily, seem
to lose the sense of his terror--nay, worse, of his tragedy. Maybe it
is something in his favour, and Death, like others, may only need to
be known to be loved.

LECTOR. But tell me, Scriptor, of this sad experience, which even now
it moves you to name; or is the memory too sad to recall?

SCRIPTOR. Sad enough, Lector, but beautiful for all that, beautiful as
winter. It was winter when she of whom I am thinking died--a winter
that seemed to make death itself whiter and colder on her marble
forehead. It is but one sad little story of all the heaped-up sorrow
of the world; but in it, as in a shell, I seem to hear the murmur of
all the tides of tears that have surged about the lot of man from the
beginning.

There were two dear friends of mine whom I used to call the happiest
lovers in the world. They had loved truly from girlhood and boyhood,
and after some struggle--for they were not born into that class which
is denied the luxury of struggle--at length saw a little home bright
in front of them. And then Jenny, who had been ever bright and strong,
suddenly and unaccountably fell ill. Like the stroke of a sword, like
the stride of a giant, Death, to whom they had never given a thought,
was upon them. It was consumption, and love could only watch and
pray. Suddenly my friend sent for me, and I saw with my own eyes what
at a distance it had seemed impossible to believe. As I entered the
house, with the fresh air still upon me, I spoke confidently, with
babbling ignorant tongue. 'Wait till you see her face!' was all my
poor stricken friend could say.

Ah! her face! How can I describe it? It was much sweeter afterwards,
but now it was so dark and witchlike, so uncanny, almost wicked, so
thin and full of inky shadows. She sat up in her bed, a wizened little
goblin, and laughed a queer, dry, knowing laugh to herself, a laugh
like the scraping of reeds in a solitary place. A strange black
weariness seemed to be crushing down her brows, like the 'unwilling
sleep' of a strong narcotic. She would begin a sentence and let it
wither away unfinished, and point sadly and almost humorously to her
straight black hair, clammy as the feathers of a dead bird lying in
the rain. Her hearing was strangely keen. And yet she did