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ness in her complexion; but there was no abatement in her gayety. The chil-
dren swarmed about and over her, as lawlessly as ever; her girl-nieces and
college-nephews gave parties in her big rooms, and granted her request to be
allowed to order and pay for the luncheons, dinners and suppers served by her
servants. She still twanged the guitar and chirped quaint ditties to her
“babies,” and played waltzes with stiff and willing fingers by the hour for older
merrymakers. The casket of filled-out checks still flew open before a tale of
woe could be finished in her hearing. With it all went the light, sometimes
flippant, prattle of commonplace nothings, and the weak giggle that was no
longer fascinating. I caught myself wondering, as I saw her feed and talk to
her butterfly, if both were not alike inconsequent, and as well content to take
in all of present delight without premonition of to-morrow’s frost or cloud.

One windy day in March, the old Fry house was burned to the ground with
stables, graperies and conservatories. My mother and I, hastening to the scene
at rumor of the disaster, found Miss Betty in a remote corner of the shrubberies
sitting upon an iron chair in the shelter of a clump of evergreens. Nobody was
near her, and she had a dazed, white look, not in the least her own. The
servants were all busy trying to save something from the flames, which still
roared horribly a little way off. Somebody, probably her maid, had wrapped
our little friend up in an ermine opera-cloak with a white silk hood trimmed
with fur. I could but liken her, in imagination, to a frozen miller moth, as she
sat huddled together, crushed into the fir-branches.

We took her home and put her to bed.

“Thank you, sweet child! God bless you!” she whispered, when I stooped
to kiss the face so pitifully and strangely shrunken and pallid.

“You will soon be all right now, dear Miss Betty.”

“O, yes!” opening her eyes to smile. “Very, very soon. It would be
sinful not to be thankful and happy. Everybody is always so good to me.
Surely goodness and mercy have fol” —

She never spoke or moved again.

When we saw that stupor, not sleep, had stolen over her, we sent for her
family physician. Beside her death-bed we learned that she had battled bravely
for two years with an insidious, and what she knew to be a mortal disease.

“She would not let me tell the truth even to her brothers,” said her only
confidant. “It ‘was not worth while to disturb them before it was absolutely
necessary, she said. How she kept up her usual mode of life, and her spirits, I
cannot comprehend. She was either the pluckiest or the least sensitive being
I ever knew. I cannot decide if she were more of a benefactress or of a
butterfly.”

“T can,” sobbed my mother.

So could I.

Marion Harland.