I asked
his brother, the sculptor, about him a little while ago, but he
only shook his head, and said nothing."
"And the woman who wore the yellow mask?"
"She, too, has ended mysteriously. At Pisa she was obliged to
sell off everything she possessed to pay her debts. Some friends
of hers at a milliner's shop, to whom she applied for help, would
have nothing to do with her. She left the city, alone and
penniless."
The boat had approached the next headland on the coast while they
were talking They looked back for a last glance at the beach.
Still the notes of the guitar came gently across the quiet water;
but there mingled with them now the sound of the lady's voice.
She was singing. The little girl and the dog were at her feet,
and the gentleman was still in his old place close at her side.
In a few minutes more the boat rounded the next headland, the
beach vanished from view, and the music died away softly in the
distance.
LAST LEAVES FROM LEAH'S DIARY.
3d of June.--Our stories are ended; our pleasant work is done. It
is a lovely summer afternoon. The great hall at the farmhouse,
after having been filled with people, is now quite deserted. I
sit alone at my little work-table, with rather a crying sensation
at my heart, and with the pen trembling in my fingers, as if I
was an old woman already. Our manuscript has been sealed up and
taken away; the one precious object of all our most anxious
thoughts for months past--our third child, as we have got to call
it--has gone out from us on this summer's day, to seek its
fortune in the world.
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