stretched out; her face fallen away, from which the nose stood out in sharp

profile, and her large dark eyes, hollow and deep, gleamed with such light

as may edge a thunder cloud at sun-set. All was shrivelled and dried up,

except these lights; her voice too was fearfully changed, as she spoke to

me at intervals. "I am afraid," said she, "that it is selfish in me to have

asked you to visit the old woman again, before she dies: yet perhaps it

would have been a greater shock to hear suddenly that I was dead, than to

see me first thus."

I clasped her shrivelled hand: "Are you indeed so ill?" I asked.

Do you not perceive death in my face," replied she, "it is strange; I

ought to have expected this, and yet I confess it has taken me unaware. I

never clung to life, or enjoyed it, till these last months, while among

those I senselessly deserted: and it is hard to be snatched immediately

away. I am glad, however, that I am not a victim of the plague; probably I

should have died at this hour, though the world had continued as it was in

my youth."

She spoke with difficulty, and I perceived that she regretted the necessity

of death, even more than she cared to confess. Yet she had not to complain

of an undue shortening of existence; her faded person shewed that life had

naturally spent itself. We had been alone at first; now Clara entered; the

Countess turned to her with a smile, and took the hand of this lovely

child; her roseate palm and snowy fingers, contrasted with relaxed fibres

and yellow hue of those of her aged friend; she bent to kiss her, touching

544

The Last Man