Jean's mother always devoted two or three weeks to Christmas shopping, and was always physically exhausted when Christmas Eve came.Jean was her very own child--she wore herself out present-hunting in New York these latter days.Paine has just found on her desk a long list of names--fifty, he thinks--people to whom she sent presents last night.Apparently she forgot no one.And Katy found there a roll of bank-notes, for the servants.
Her dog has been wandering about the grounds today, comradeless and forlorn.I have seen him from the windows.She got him from Germany.He has tall ears and looks exactly like a wolf.He was educated in Germany, and knows no language but the German.Jean gave him no orders save in that tongue.And so when the burglar-alarm made a fierce clamor at midnight a fortnight ago, the butler, who is French and knows no German, tried in vain to interest the dog in the supposed burglar.Jean wrote me, to Bermuda, about the incident.It was the last letter I was ever to receive from her bright head and her competent hand.
The dog will not be neglected.
There was never a kinder heart than Jean's.From her childhood up she always spent the most of her allowance on charities of one kind or another.After she became secretary and had her income doubled she spent her money upon these things with a free hand.Mine too, I am glad and grateful to say.
She was a loyal friend to all animals, and she loved them all, birds, beasts, and everything--even snakes--an inheritance from me.She knew all the birds; she was high up in that lore.
She became a member of various humane societies when she was still a little girl--both here and abroad--and she remained an active member to the last.She founded two or three societies for the protection of animals, here and in Europe.
She was an embarrassing secretary, for she fished my correspondence out of the waste-basket and answered the letters.
She thought all letters deserved the courtesy of an answer.
Her mother brought her up in that kindly error.
She could write a good letter, and was swift with her pen.
She had but an indifferent ear music, but her tongue took to languages with an easy facility.She never allowed her Italian, French, and German to get rusty through neglect.
The telegrams of sympathy are flowing in, from far and wide, now, just as they did in Italy five years and a half ago, when this child's mother laid down her blameless life.They cannot heal the hurt, but they take away some of the pain.When Jean and I kissed hands and parted at my door last, how little did we imagine that in twenty-two hours the telegraph would be bringing words like these:
"From the bottom of our hearts we send out sympathy, dearest of friends."For many and many a day to come, wherever I go in this house, remembrancers of Jean will mutely speak to me of her.Who can count the number of them?
She was in exile two years with the hope of healing her malady--epilepsy.There are no words to express how grateful Iam that she did not meet her fate in the hands of strangers, but in the loving shelter of her own home.
"MISS JEAN IS DEAD!"
It is true.Jean is dead.
A month ago I was writing bubbling and hilarious articles for magazines yet to appear, and now I am writing--this.
CHRISTMAS DAY.NOON.--Last night I went to Jean's room at intervals, and turned back the sheet and looked at the peaceful face, and kissed the cold brow, and remembered that heartbreaking night in Florence so long ago, in that cavernous and silent vast villa, when I crept downstairs so many times, and turned back a sheet and looked at a face just like this one--Jean's mother's face--and kissed a brow that was just like this one.And last night I saw again what I had seen then--that strange and lovely miracle--the sweet, soft contours of early maidenhood restored by the gracious hand of death! When Jean's mother lay dead, all trace of care, and trouble, and suffering, and the corroding years had vanished out of the face, and I was looking again upon it as I had known and worshipped it in its young bloom and beauty a whole generation before.
About three in the morning, while wandering about the house in the deep silences, as one dies in times like these, when there is a dumb sense that something has been lost that will never be found again, yet must be sought, if only for the employment the useless seeking gives, I came upon Jean's dog in the hall downstairs, and noted that he did not spring to greet me, according to his hospitable habit, but came slow and sorrowfully;also I remembered that he had not visited Jean's apartment since the tragedy.Poor fellow, did he know? I think so.Always when Jean was abroad in the open he was with her; always when she was in the house he was with her, in the night as well as in the day.
Her parlor was his bedroom.Whenever I happened upon him on the ground floor he always followed me about, and when I went upstairs he went too--in a tumultuous gallop.But now it was different: after patting him a little I went to the library--he remained behind; when I went upstairs he did not follow me, save with his wistful eyes.He has wonderful eyes--big, and kind, and eloquent.He can talk with them.He is a beautiful creature, and is of the breed of the New York police-dogs.I do not like dogs, because they bark when there is no occasion for it; but Ihave liked this one from the beginning, because he belonged to Jean, and because he never barks except when there is occasion--which is not oftener than twice a week.
In my wanderings I visited Jean's parlor.On a shelf Ifound a pile of my books, and I knew what it meant.She was waiting for me to come home from Bermuda and autograph them, then she would send them away.If I only knew whom she intended them for! But I shall never know.I will keep them.Her hand has touched them--it is an accolade--they are noble, now.