"Yes," said I. My voice was shaken, broken out of all control. "You have helped. Why, you have done everything, Stella! There is not a young man in America with his prospects. In five years, he will be one of our greatest lawyers,--everybody says so--everybody! And you have done it all, Stella--every bit of it! You have made a man of him, I tell you! Look at what he was!--and then look at what he is! And--and you talk of leaving him now! Why, it's preposterous! Peter needs you, I tell you--he needs you to cajole the proper people and keep him steady and--and--Why, you artful young woman, how could he possibly get on without you, do you think? Oh, how can any of us get on without you? You _must_ get well, I tell you. In a month, you will be right as a trivet. You die! Why, nonsense!" I laughed. I feared I would never have done with laughter over the idea of Stella's dying. "But I have done all I could. And so he doesn't need me now." Stella meditated for yet another moment. "I believe I shall always know when he does anything especially big. God would be sure to tell me, you see, because He understands how much it means to me. And I shall be proud--ah, yes, wherever I am, I shall be proud of Peter. You see, he didn't really care about being a success, for of course he knows that Uncle Larry will leave him a great deal of money one of these days. But I am such a vain little cat--so bent on making a noise in the world, --that, I think, he did it more to please my vanity than anything else. I nagged him, frightfully, you know," Stella confessed, "but he was always--oh, _so_ dear about it, Rob! And he has never failed me--not even once, although I know at times it has been very hard for him." Stella sighed; and then laughed. "Yes," said she, "I think I am satisfied with my life altogether. Somehow, I am sure I shall be told about it when he is a power in the world--a power for good, as he will be,--and then I shall be very perky--somewhere. I ought to sing _Nunc Dimittis_, oughtn't I?" I was not unmoved; nor did it ever lie within my power to be unmoved when I thought of Stella and how gaily she went to meet her death.... 5 "Good-bye," said she, in a tired voice. "Good-bye, Stella," said I; and I kissed her. "And I don't think you are a mess. And I _don't_ hate you." She was smiling very strangely. "Yes, I remember that first time. And no matter what they said, I always cared heaps more about you, Rob, than I dared let you know. And if only you had been as dependable as Peter--But, you see, you weren't--" "No, dear, you did the right thing--what was best for all of us--" "Then don't mind so much. Oh, Bob, it hurts me to see you mind so much! You aren't--being dependable, like Peter, even now," she said, reproachfully.... Heine was right; there is an Aristophanes in heaven. 15. _He Decides to Amuse Himself_