down with grief. He had come to that place
where, whatever the shock or the ill-turn of fortune, he could accept
it, and even in that first moment of loss he realized that, for Jean at
least, the fortune was not ill. Her malady had never been cured, and it
had been one of his deepest dreads that he would leave her behind him.
It was believed, at first; that Jean had drowned, and Dr. Smith tried
methods of resuscitation; but then he found that it was simply a case of
heart cessation caused by the cold shock of her bath.

The Gabrilowitsches were by this time in Europe, and Clemens cabled
them not to come. Later in the day he asked me if we would be willing
to close our home for the winter and come to Stormfield. He said that
he should probably go back to Bermuda before long; but that he wished to
keep the house open so that it would be there for him to come to at any
time that he might need it.

We came, of course, for there was no thought among any of his friends
but for his comfort and peace of mind. Jervis Langdon was summoned from
Elmira, for Jean would lie there with the others.

In the loggia stood the half-trimmed Christmas tree, and all about lay
the packages of gifts, and in Jean's room, on the chairs and upon her
desk, were piled other packages. Nobody had been forgotten. For her
father she had bought a handsome globe; he had always wanted one. Once
when I went into his room he said:

"I have been looking in at Jean and envying her. I have never greatly
envied any one but the dead. I always envy the dead."

He told me how the night before they had dined together alone; how he
had urged her to turn over a part of her work to me; how she had clung
to every duty as if now, after all the years, she was determined to make
up for lost time.

While they were at dinner a telephone inquiry had come concerning his
health, for the papers had reported him as returning from Bermuda in a
critical condition. He had written this playful answer:

MANAGER ASSOCIATED PRESS,
New York.

I hear the newspapers say I am dying. The charge is not true. I
would not do such a thing at my time of life. I am behaving as good
as I can.

Merry Christmas to everybody! MARK TWAIN.

Jean telephoned it for him to the press. It had been the last secretary
service she had ever rendered.

She had kissed his hand, he said, when they parted, for she had a severe
cold and would not wish to impart it to him; th