I read all Martia's blaze letters to her, and helped her to read them for herself, and so did Barty. She got to know them by heart—especially the last; she grew to talk as Martia wrote; she told me of strange dreams she had often had—dreams she had told Sparrow and her own brothers and sisters when she was a child—wondrous dreams, in their seeming confirmation of what seemed to us so impossible. Her pains grew slighter and ceased.
And now her whole existence had become a dream—a tranquil, happy dream; it showed itself in her face, its transfigured, unearthly beauty—in her cheerful talk, her eager sympathy; a kind of heavenly pity she seemed to feel for those who had to go on living out their normal length of days. And always the old love of fun and frolic and pretty tunes.
Her father would make her laugh till she cried, and the same fount of tears would serve when Mary sang Brahms and Schubert and Lassen to her—and Roberta played Chopin and Schumann by the hour.
So she might have lived on for a few years—four or five—even ten. But she died at seventeen, of mere influenza, very quickly and without much pain. Her father and mother were by her bedside when her spirit passed away, and Dr. Knight, who had brought her into the world.
She woke from a gentle doze and raised her head, and called out in a clear voice:
"Barty—Leah—come, to me, come!"
And fell back dead.
Barty bowed his head and face on her hand, and remained there as if asleep. It was Leah who drew her eyelids down.
An hour later Dr. Knight came to me, his face distorted with grief.
"It's all over?" I said.