Flower of the Dusk. Reed Myrtle

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СКАЧАТЬ other song," reminded Barbara, gently.

      Song of the Sunset

      "This one was about a sunset," he sighed. "It was such a sunset as was never on sea or land, because two who loved each other saw it together. God and all His angels had hung a marvellous tapestry from the high walls of Heaven, and it reached almost to the mountain-tops, where some of the little clouds sleep.

      "The man said, 'Shall we always look for the sunsets together?'

      "The woman smiled and answered, 'Yes, always.'

      "'And,' the man continued, 'when one of us goes on the last long journey?'

      "'Then,' answered the woman, 'the other will not be watching alone. For, I think, there in the West is the Golden City with the jasper walls and the jewelled foundations, where the twelve gates are twelve pearls.'"

      There was a long silence. "And so—" said Barbara, softly.

      Ambrose North lifted his grey head from his hands and rose to his feet unsteadily. "And so," he said, with difficulty, "she leans from the sunset toward him, but he can never see her, because he is blind. Oh, Barbara," he cried, passionately, "last night I dreamed that you could walk and I could see!"

      "So we can, Daddy," said Barbara, very gently. "Our souls are neither blind nor lame. Here, I am eyes for you and you are feet for me, so we belong together. And—past the sunset——"

      "Past the sunset," repeated the old man, dreamily, "soul and body shall be as one. We must wait—for life is made up of waiting—and make what songs we can."

      "I think, Father, that a song should be in poetry, shouldn't it?"

      The Real Song

      "Some of them are, but more are not. Some are music and some are words, and some, like prayers, are feeling. The real song is in the thrush's heart, not in the silvery rain of sound that comes from the green boughs in Spring. When you open the door of your heart and let all the joy rush out, laughing—then you are making a song."

      "But—is there always joy?"

      "Yes, though sometimes it is sadly covered up with other things. We must find it and divide it, for only in that way it grows. Good-night, my dear."

      He bent to kiss her, while Miriam, with her heart full of nameless yearning, watched them from the far shadows. The sound of his footsteps died away and a distant door closed. Soon afterward Miriam took her candle and went noiselessly upstairs, but she did not say good-night to Barbara.

      Midnight

      Until midnight, the girl sat at her sewing, taking the finest of stitches in tuck and hem. The lamp burning low made her needle fly swiftly. In her own room was an old chest nearly full of dainty garments which she was never to wear. She had wrought miracles of embroidery upon some of them, and others were unadorned save by tucks and lace.

      When the work was finished, she folded it and laid it aside, then put away her thimble and thread. "When the guests come to the hotel," she thought—"ah, when they come, and buy all the things I've made the past year, and the preserves and the candied orange peel, the rag rugs and the quilts, then——"

      Dying Embers

      So Barbara fell a-dreaming, and the light of the dying embers lay lovingly upon her face, already transfigured by tenderness into beauty beyond words. The lamp went out and little by little the room faded into twilight, then into night. It was quite dark when she leaned over and picked up her crutches.

      "Dear, dear father," she breathed. "He must never know!"

II

       Table of Contents

Miss Mattie

       Table of Contents

      Miss Mattie was getting supper, sustained by the comforting thought that her task was utterly beneath her and had been forced upon her by the mysterious workings of an untoward Fate. She was not really "Miss," since she had been married and widowed, and a grown son was waiting impatiently in the sitting-room for his evening meal, but her neighbours, nearly all of whom had known her before her marriage, still called her "Miss Mattie."

      "Old Maids"

      The arbitrary social distinctions, made regardless of personality, are often cruelly ironical. Many a man, incapable by nature of life-long devotion to one woman, becomes a husband in half an hour, duly sanctioned by Church and State. A woman who remains unmarried, because, with fine courage, she will have her true mate or none, is called "an old maid." She may have the heart of a wife and the soul of a mother, but she cannot escape her sinister label. The real "old maids" are of both sexes, and many are married, but alas! seldom to each other.

      A Grievance

      In his introspective moments, Roger Austin sometimes wondered why marriage, maternity, and bereavement should have left no trace upon his mother. The uttermost depths of life had been hers for the sounding, but Miss Mattie had refused to drop her plummet overboard and had spent the years in prolonged study of her own particular boat.

      She came in, with the irritating air of a martyr, and clucked sharply with her false teeth when she saw that her son was reading.

      "I don't know what I've done," she remarked, "that I should have to live all the time with people who keep their noses in books. Your pa was forever readin' and you're marked with it. I could set here and set here and set here, and he took no more notice of me than if I was a piece of furniture. When he died, the brethren and sistern used to come to condole with me and say how I must miss him. There wasn't nothin' to miss, 'cause the books and his chair was left. I've a good mind to burn 'em all up."

      "I won't read if you don't want me to, Mother," answered Roger, laying his book aside regretfully.

      "I dunno but what I'd rather you would than to want to and not," she retorted, somewhat obscurely. "What I'm a-sayin' is that it's in the blood and you can't help it. If I'd known it was your pa's intention to give himself up so exclusive to readin', I'd never have married him, that's all I've got to say. There's no sense in it. Lemme see what you're at now."

      She took the open book, that lay face downward upon the table, and read aloud, awkwardly:

      "Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the births of the eternal. Friendship demands a religious treatment. We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected."

      Peculiar Way of Putting Things

      "Now," she demanded, in a shrill voice, "what does that mean?"

      "I don't think I could explain it to you, Mother."

      "That's just the point. Your pa couldn't never explain nothin', neither. You're readin' and readin' and readin' and you never know what you're readin' about. Diamonds growin' and births bein' hurried up, and friends bein' religious and voted for at township elections. Who's runnin' for friend this year on the СКАЧАТЬ