The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall.  And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.

When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.

The ivy leaf was still there.

Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it.  And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.

“I’ve been a bad girl, Sudie,” said Johnsy.  “Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was.  It is a sin to want to die.  You may bring me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and—­no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook.”

An hour later she said.

“Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples.”

The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.

“Even chances,” said the doctor, taking Sue’s thin, shaking hand in his.  “With good nursing you’ll win.  And now I must see another case I have downstairs.  Behrman, his name is—­some kind of an artist, I believe.  Pneumonia, too.  He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute.  There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable.”

The next day the doctor said to Sue:  “She’s out of danger.  You’ve won.  Nutrition and care now—­that’s all.”

And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woolen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.

“I have something to tell you, white mouse,” she said.  “Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital.  He was ill only two days.  The janitor found him on the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain.  His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold.  They couldn’t imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night.  And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and—­look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall.  Didn’t you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew?  Ah, darling, it’s Behrman’s masterpiece—­he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell.”

THE COUNT AND THE WEDDING GUEST

One evening when Andy Donovan went to dinner at his Second Avenue boarding-house, Mrs. Scott introduced him to a new boarder, a young lady, Miss Conway.  Miss Conway was small and unobtrusive.  She wore a plain, snuffy-brown dress, and bestowed her interest, which seemed languid, upon her plate.  She lifted her diffident eyelids and shot one perspicuous, judicial glance at Mr. Donovan, politely murmured his name, and returned to her mutton.  Mr. Donovan bowed with the grace and beaming smile that were rapidly winning for him social, business and political advancement, and erased the snuffy-brown one from the tablets of his consideration.