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HOW THE EAST END WAS REDEEMED
(Continued from last week.
She put both hands over her eyes for a long mo
ment, and when she took them down at last, she
looked humble and contrite as a little child.
“I think that I can get ready to ride,” she said,
the hint of tears in her voice, “in five minutes.
Can you wait so long?”
“Certainly,” he replied, touched by the strug
gle he had witnessed, “but you must wrap up
well. February is a treacherous month, you know,
not adapted to delicate constitutions.”
After she had left him, alone in the flower scent
ed silence, Dr. Falkenham walked up and down
the floor with folded arms. “I hope that speech I
made her,” he said at last, with a sigh, “about my
indifference to her, except as a part of the uni
verse, will not be interpreted to my detriment later
on. She might wake up and I should have to dis
cover, whether willingly or not, all the splendid
virtues of a woman nobly planned.”
Mrs. Cobb came down attired for her ride in
costly black, but Dr. Falkenham was glad to ob
serve that she wore no veil, and that her mourn
ing was of that beautiful sort which it did not
make other people miserable to look upon. He
was surprised to discover that she was rather a
fine looking woman in full dress, and a certain
idealistic charm in her face—which had come from
her surrender, perhaps—gave him a thrill of real
pleasure, as he lifted her into his handsome car
riage, drawn up before the Wightman residence.
The horse Dr. Falkenham drove was a powerful
bay, spirited, and a trifle dangerous. For the first
few minutes his attention was wholly absorbed in
keeping the animal well in hand. As the bay quiet
ed down, Dr. Falkenham turned to his companion
with a smile.
“Do you remember what Thomas Nelson Page
says about a thoroughbred horse?”
“No.”
“He asserts that they go with their heads up un
til they drop. A fact that is also true of thorough
bred persons.”
“Thank you,” and there was a flash of resent
ment in Mrs. Cobb’s fine eyes. “Your personalities
are charmingly veiled.”
Dr. Falkenham laughed, but his expression was
frank as a brother’s, as he said deliberately, “I
would give anything, reasonable or unreasonable,
to make you angry—angry to the finger tips. A
regular Vesuvius flame would do you untold good.”
“Perhaps,” she answered, a trifle amused. “It
is suggested to me, from your remarks, however,
that you should read ‘Shiloh,’ ” she went on in
the sweet, meditative tone for which he had al
ready learned to listen. “Since you aspire to be
a Reformer, nothing could be more helpful to you.”
. They were driving down the finest residence street
of the city. There were houses of colonial archi
tecture, palaces in Italian marble, Queen Anne
houses, old and massive structures of brown stone
and red brick, modernized and made beautiful; all
that wealth and taste could do combined, seemed
to challenge the glance from behind the green lawns
and shrubberies of the broad boulevard. Groups
of children with their nurses were on the sidewalk,
beautiful women in handsome turnouts dashed gaily
by, while here and there a market wagon, or a
son and daughter of toil, added shade to the pic
ture, over which streamed the glory of the after
noon sun.
“Tell me about the book,” Dr. Falkenham
urged softly. “Hildred says that when you talk
in color, you could charm a Seraph.”
“You must not believe everything Hildred says
about me,” she protested. “She loves me and I
think if I ever had the gift of word-painting, I
have lost it. But I would like to tell you about
‘Shiloh.’ I really think it might help you in your
profession.”
“I am listening,” he replied in a tone of interest.
“Mrs. Browning says, ‘lt takes the ideal to move
By ODESSA STRICKLAND PAYNE, Author of “Psyche,” ‘Tittle Cal,” Etc.
The Golden Age for November 15, 1906.
the actual an inch,’ and you know there is much
actual in my work.”
“It has been years since I read the book,” she
replied, “but I believe I can still recall the outline
of the story. It is really the well written history
of a young woman who conquered herself and re
deemed a village world in the process. She was
disappointed in love, and in consequence she left
her native city, New York, and went off to the
village to recover her health and learn how to be
a normal human being again.”
“What sort of a girl was she?”
“Gifted and lovely. But she confesses to have
had two selves, a bona-self and a mala-self, and
her description of the conflict between these two
metaphysical forces is what constitutes the great
charm of the book.”
“What did she do? I mean, after conquering
herself, how did she go to work?”
“What entirely masculine questions! I have al
ready told you that she reformed a village, of
course this much to be desired result was achieved
by listening to the higher voices, as embodied in
the bona-self. She helped one girl to become a
musician, another to develop into a first class
writer, in fact, she lifted up every life she touched,
until the whole town was radiated by her person
ality.”
“What else?”
“Nothing, except that she had a fine voice, which
she also used for the good of her people, until, her
own character being perfected, her lover reappeared
and the curtain was rung down on her life work.”
Dr. Falkenham pulled his horse to his haunches,
and then he let him go like the wind, fully a half
mile, before he answered, with apparent uncon
sciousness of the interruption.
“A voice? That makes me think. Hildred says
you used to sing. I do not know of a more beau
tiful way to serve. I have three or four patients
now, whom only a song would help so much. I may
be superstitious, but I assure you, I would be afraid
to hold a gift like you have in abeyance and un
used. ’ ’
Mrs. Cobb did not answer, and they had driven
back into the roar and rush of the business part
of the city, before Dr. Falkenham uttered another
word. He drew rein before a tall six storied mar
ble building, in which his office was situated; and
after he had alighted, placed the lines in her hands.
“Bismarck will stand,” Dr. Falkenham said
abruptly, as he turned to go up the steps, “and you
need not waste any nerve force in fear.”
Mrs. Cobb watched the crowd on the sidewalk,
within the flare and glare of the revolving electric
lights on the next corner, and counted the street
cars byway of a mental diversion; but all the
same she was glad when Dr. Falkenham came
swiftly down the steps. He had exchanged his light
overcoat for a large fur cape and coat, and she
was obliged to acknowledge that he looked unus
ually handsome, as he laid a bunch of violets in
her lap. She did not wish to accept them, but she
loved violets, as England’s Laureate loved them,
and these, following upon the conflict which had
preceded the ride, were like the breath of Heaven
to her sensitive soul.
It was only a mile to the Wightman home, but
Guendolin Cobb fought the battle of her life, while
she was being whirled along. Dr. Falkenham did
not address a word to her, but as he lifted her
carefully to the sidewalk, before his nephew’s gate,
he gave her a long, searching glance. Guen replied
to it, without evasion, and the idealistic charm
transfigured her face for the second time that
afternoon, as she said softly.
“If you should happen to want me to sing for
your patients, you have only to let me know, any
time.”
He took off his hat and bowed with the grace of
a man who had conquered in a good cause.
“Thank you,” he said, simply, and then he drove
away into the engulfing shadows of the night.
CHAPTER 111.
For two days after the drive, Mrs. Cobb kept her
room, and Harold and Hildred held their breath
metaphorically, over what would be the final result.
One evening, however, as they all lingered by
the fire in the dining room, Morris and his uncle
quietly discussing current events, they heard the
soft notes of the piano issuing from the sitting
room. There was a tender prelude, and then a
voice began to sing, “Consider the Lilies.” The
small audience was cultured, and accustomed to
hearing the finest priraa donnas, in their migrations
through a great city. When the song was finish
ed, Morris took his hand down from his eyes.
“It is Easter Sunday,” he exclaimed softly,
“and I am in church. I see the palms and lilies
in front of the altar, while down from the organ
lift floats a voice of such enthralling harmony
that I dream the owner belongs to the choir in
visible. ’ ’
Harold had walked to the window, and is stand
ing there, apparently studying the twilight view,
although he is deeply moved. Hildred, in her white
albatross dress, her blue eyes shining with excite
ment, sits erect, on the opposite side of the hearth
from her liege lord.
“Wait!” she commands with a swift imperious
gesture. There is a soft rush of instrumental mel
ody from the next room, and the magnificent voice
takes up its silver burden again, in “Only Tired.”
Harold feels that the anguish of years is concentrat
ed in the appeal—“ Gently, Lord, Oh, gently lead
us!” which suddenly soars to triumph in the line,
“Till the last great change appears.” At the last
verse, Hildred kneels down by her husband’s side
and hides her face against his shoulder, while the
climax of the song is being repeated, in high
thrilling tones, “Neither doubting, nor forsaken,
Only tired, Only tired.”
After a long pause, Harold, with a white but
self controlled face, turns quietly from the win
dow, and leaves the room. Hildred and her hus
band exchange glances.
“While ho is helping our Undine to find her
soul,” Hildred says in a tender meditative tone,
“he might wake up his own, to his sorrow.”
“Hardly,” her husband replies. “He is such a
grand fellow, so utterly without affectation, and
yet so magnetic, that I do not think it would be
easy for even Guendolin Cobb to ignore him.”
“Not easy, but all the same she will do it.”
Hildred’s husband-shook his head, unconvinced,
and then they went into rhe next room.
Mrs. Cobb was sitting by the fire, with a book
in her lap. But her face was no longer expression
less, the plaster paris mask was off for the mo
ment, and Hildred was consciously sorry that her
uncle was not there to see the transformation.
Mrs. Cobb was not a woman who did anything
by halves, as her utter abandonment to her grief
proved. And now that she had made up her mind
to live, for some of the higher reasons of being,
she did not propose any half way measures to her
self. She began to help Hildred, in many beautiful
ways, to do the small things that bless, and bright
en, about her cousin’s home. And nearly every
evening, she played the piano and sang, to the en
thusiastic delight of the family. But of course
she did not conquer herself without conflict; some
times she did not leave her room until noon, and
sometimes she evaded the family circle after tea,
and then her friends understood and were sorry.
One morning, however, Guen came down to find
the “spirit of light and sweetness,” a prisoner on
the Roman couch. It was a frequent occurrence,
in the Wightman house, but Hildred was always
so charming that her friends often forgot that she
was a sufferer. The sight touched Guen, but after
lowering the shade and arranging the silk eider
down covering a little better over the slender figure,
she took a low seat, just where she could look into
the spirituelle face—and waited.
(Continued on page 11.)
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