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I had often wondered where such a picture had come from, and why Mrs. Todd had chosen it; it was a French print of the statue of the Empress Josephine in the Savane at old Fort Royal, in Martinique.

VI

Mrs. Todd drew her chair closer to mine; she held the cat and her knitting with one hand as she moved, but the cat was so warm and so sound asleep that she only stretched a lazy paw in spite of what must have felt like a slight earthquake. Mrs. Todd began to speak almost in a whisper.

“I ain’t told you all,” she continued; “no, I haven’t spoken of all to but very few. The way it came was this,” she said solemnly, and then stopped to listen to the wind, an
d sat for a moment in deferential silence, as if she waited for the wind to speak first. The cat suddenly lifted her head with quick excitement and gleaming eyes, and her mistress was leaning forward toward the fire with an arm laid on either knee, as if they were consulting the glowing coals for some augury. Mrs. Todd looked like an old prophetess as she sat there with the firelight shining on her strong face; she was posed for some great painter. The woman with the cat was as unconscious and as mysterious as any sibyl of the Sistine Chapel.

“There, that’s the last struggle o’ the gale,” said Mrs. Todd, nodding her head with impressive certainty and still looking into the bright embers of the fire.”You’ll see!” She gave me another quick glance, and spoke in a low tone as if we might be overheard.

“‘Twas such a gale as this the night Mis’ Tolland died. She appeared more comfortable the first o’ the evenin’; and Mrs. Begg was more spent than I, bein’ older, and a beautiful nurse that was the first to see and think of everything, but perfectly quiet an’ never asked a useless question. You remember her funeral when you first come to the Landing? And she consented to goin’ an’ havin’ a good sleep while she could, and left me one o’ those good little pewter lamps that burnt whale oil an’ made plenty o’ light in the room, but not too bright to be disturbin’.

“Poor Mis’ Tolland had been distressed the night before, an’ all that day, but as night come on she grew more and more easy, an’ was layin’ there asleep; ’twas like settin’ by any sleepin’ person, and I had none but usual thoughts. When the wind lulled and the rain, I could hear the seas, though more distant than this, and I don’ know ‘s I observed any other sound than what the weather made; ’twas a very solemn feelin’ night. I set close by the bed; there was times she looked to find somebody when she was awake. The light was on her face, so I could see her plain; there was always times when she wore a look that made her seem a stranger you’d never set eyes on before. I did think what a world it was that her an’ me should have come together so, and she have nobody but Dunnet Landin’ folks about her in her extremity.’You’re one o’ the stray ones, poor creatur’,’ I said. I remember those very words passin’ through my mind, but I saw reason to be glad she had some comforts, and didn’t lack friends at the last, though she’d seen misery an’ pain. I was glad she was quiet; all day she’d been restless, and we couldn’t understand what she wanted from her French speech. We had the window open to give her air, an’ now an’ then a gust would strike that guitar that was on the wall and set it swinging by the blue ribbon, and soundin’ as if somebody begun to play it. I come near takin’ it down, but you never know what’ll fret a sick person an’ put ’em on the rack, an’ that guitar was one o’ the few things she’d brought with her.”