till, until her
friends could come from the charity office. It was a notion she had,
Mrs. McCutcheon, the district visitor, explained, that would not let her
rest till her "paper" was made out. For her, born in the wilderness,
death had no such terror as prying eyes.

"Them police fellows," she said, with the least touch of resentment in
her gentle voice, "they might take my things and sell them to buy cigars
to smoke." I suspect it was the cigar that grated harshly. It was ever
to her a vulgar slur on her beloved pipe. In truth, the mere idea of
Mrs. Ben Wah smoking a cigar rouses in me impatient resentment. Without
her pipe she was not herself. I see her yet, stuffing it with approving
forefinger, on the Christmas day when I had found her with tobacco pouch
empty, and pocket to boot, and nodding the quaint comment from her
corner, "It's no disgrace to be poor, but it's sometimes very
inconvenient."

[Illustration: Mrs. Ben Wah.]

There was something in the little attic room that spoke of the coming
change louder than the warning paper. A half-finished mat, with its
bundle of rags put carefully aside; the thirsty potato-vine on the
fire-escape, which reached appealingly from its soap-box toward the
window, as if in wondering search for the hands that had tended it so
faithfully,--bore silent testimony that Mrs. Ben Wah's work-day was over
at last. It had been a long day--how long no one may ever know. "The
winter of the big snow," or "the year when deer was scarce" on the
Gatineau, is not as good a guide to time-reckoning in the towns as in
the woods, and Mrs. Ben Wah knew no other. Her thoughts dwelt among the
memories of the past as she sat slowly nodding her turbaned head, idle
for once. The very head-dress, arranged and smoothed with unusual care,
was "notice," proceeding from a primitive human impulse. Before the
great mystery she "was ashamed and covered her head."

The charity visitor told me what I had half guessed. Beyond the fact
that she was tired and had made up her mind to die, nothing ailed Mrs.
Ben Wah. But at her age, the doctor had said, it was enough; she would
have her way. In faith, she was failing day by day. All that could be
done was to make her last days as easy as might be. I talked to her of
my travels, of the great salt water upon which I should journey many
days; but her thoughts were in the lonely woods, and she did not
understand. I told her of beautiful France, the language of which s