"Do not listen to him," she exclaimed, holding out her arm to Jacques, "do not listen to him; he is not speaking the truth. We will go out tomorrow--it is All Saints' Day. It will be cold--go buy me a muff, I beg of you. I am afraid of chilblains this winter." Jacques was going out with his friend, but Francine detained the doctor. "Go and get my muff," said she to Jacques. "Get a nice one, so that it may last a good while." When she was alone she said to the doctor. "Oh sir! I am going to die, and I know it. But before I pass away give me something to give me strength for a night, I beg of you. Make me well for one more night, and let me die afterwards, since God does not wish me to live longer." As the doctor was doing his best to console her, the wind carried into the room and cast upon the sick girl's bed a yellow leaf, torn from the tree in the little courtyard. Francine opened the curtain, and saw the tree entirely bare. "It is the last," said she, putting the leaf under her pillow. "You will not die until tomorrow," said the doctor. "You have a night before you." "Ah, what happiness!" exclaimed the poor girl. "A winter's night--it will be a long one." Jacques came back. He brought a muff with him. "It is very pretty," said Francine. "I will wear it when I go out." So passed the night with Jacques. The next day--All Saints'--about the middle of the day, the death agony seized on her, and her whole body began to quiver. "My hands are cold," she murmured. "Give me my muff." And she buried her poor hands in the fur. "It is the end," said the doctor to Jacques. "Kiss her for the last time." Jacques pressed his lips to those of his love. At the last moment they wanted to take away her muff, but she clutched it with her hands. "No, no," she said, "leave it me; it is winter, it is cold. Oh my poor Jacques! My poor Jacques! What will become of you? Oh heavens!" And the next day Jacques was alone. _First Reader_: I told you that this was not a very lively story. What would you have, reader? We cannot always laugh. It was the morning of All Saints. Francine was dead. Two men were watching at the bedside. One of them standing up was the doctor. The other, kneeling beside the bed, was pressing his lips to the dead girl's hands, and seemed to rivet them there in a despairing kiss. It was Jacques, her lover. For more than six hours he had been plunged in a state of heart broken insensibility. An organ playing under the windows had just roused him from it. This organ was playing a tune that Francine was in the habit of singing of a morning. One of those mad hopes that are only born out of deep despair flashed across Jacques' mind. He went back a month in the past--to the period when Francine was only sick unto death; he forgot the present, and imagined for a moment that the dead girl was but sleeping, and that she would wake up directly, her mouth full of her morning song.