t capers and cracked little jokes to make
her laugh.

Leah's hair was slightly gray and her magnificent figure somewhat
matronly, but there were no other signs of autumn; her beautiful
white skin was still as delicate as a baby's, her jet-black eyes as
bright and full, her teeth just as they were thirty years back.

Tall as she was, her husband towered over her, the finest and
handsomest man of his age I have ever seen. And Marty gazed after
them with her heart in her eyes as they drove off.

"How splendid they are, Uncle Bob!"

Then she looked down at her own shrunken figure and limbs--her long,
wasted legs and her thin, slight feet that were yet so beautifully
shaped.

And, hiding her face in her hands, she began to cry:

"And I'm their poor little daughter--oh dear, oh dear!"

She wept silently for a while, and I said nothing, but endured an
agony such as I cannot describe.

Then she dried her eyes and smiled, and said:

"What a goose I am," and, looking at me--

"Oh! Uncle Bob, forgive me; I've made you very unhappy--it shall
never happen again!"

Suddenly the spirit moved me to tell her the story of Martia.

Leah and Barty and I had often discussed whether she should be told
this extraordinary thing, in which we never knew whether to believe
or not, and which, if there were a possibility of its being true,
concerned Marty so directly.

They settled that they would leave it entirely to me--to tell her or
not, as my own instinct would prompt me, should the opportunity
occur.

My instinct prompted me to do so now. I shall not forget that
evening.

The full moon rose before the sun had quite set, and I talked on and
on. The others came in to dinner. She and I had some dinner brought
to us out there, and on I talked--and she could scarcely eat for
listening. I wrapped her well up, and lit pipe after pipe, and went
on talking, and a nightingale sang, but quite unheard by Marty
Josselin.

She did not even hear her sister Mary, whose voice went lightly up
to heaven through the open window:

"Oh that we two were maying!"

And when we parted that night she thanked and kissed me so
effusively I felt that I had been happily inspired.

"I believe every word of it's true; I know it, I feel it! Uncle Bob,
you have changed my life; I have often desponded when nobody
knew--but never again! Dear papa! Only think of him! As if any human
being alive could write what he has written without help from abov