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HE landscape through which the red
motor car smoothly glided, breathed of
the color and perfume of the early
Spring. Across the gray fields on the
right there was the pink oasis of a
peach orchard, and on the other side
of the road the white flower of the
dogwood was interspersed with the
darker foliage of the oak and blackgum.
T
The golden slant of the afternoon sun made the
scene half-sylvan; the appeal and radiance of the
Spring vibrated in the very air itself; but the young
occupant of the motor car seemed utterly oblivious
to all outward things. She wore a navy blue suit,
with a short jacket, and the hat on the dark brown
fluff of her pompadour was wreathed heavily in
plumes of the same shade as her costume. The face
w 7 as statuesque and patrician and the dark brown
eyes held an abstract expression, that seemed some
how out of harmony with the mobile curves of the
lovely mouth.
The chauffeur on the front seat was a middle aged
white man; and the space by his side was piled
high with wild flowers and ferns. He turned on the
current as they neared the city, and the car sw 7 ept
through the streets of the suburbs at a rapid rate.
They had flashed away a mile or two, the dusk had
deepened into twilight as the motor car swung
around a corner of marble buildings, which held
a church with great ■white pillars as the central ob
ject of attraction. The whole front of the block
was platted in grass, and there was a certain style
of correspondence in the character of the buildings,
■which gave the architectural whole an imposing
effect. Somebody’s dream in stone, for the benefit
of humanity, looked grandly worth while, in the
moonlight.
As the motor climbed the incline of the paved
street, a clear, musical command issued from the
back seat:
‘ ‘ Stop, Sanders! ”
The chauffeur turned the current off, and the car
halted in front of the church. Sylvia Warrenton
got out. and the slender perfection of the tall
figure in blue was clearly defined under the electric
arc light, also a certain indefinable charm in the
high bred face.
“Phone to Aunt Lina,” Sylvia said to the chauf
feur, “that I have stopped for services at the Mer
rill Mission.”
“She will doubtless be aghast,” she continued
to herself, as she climbed the marble steps, “since
I have not been to church in an age.”
******
An hour later Miss Warrenton’s motor swept
swiftly from out the shadows of a side street, into
a broad fashionable boulevard, and came to a halt
before a handsome home of white marble, on a
corner lot, platted with grass and shadowed with
treas whose silvery grace of foliage suggested a
tropical birth-land.
A young man with broad, athletic shoulders, and
a prepossessing face, whose black suit was relieved
by a white vest and a pink carnation on the lapel
of his coat, came down the stone steps, as Sylvia
paused on the tile walk.
“Sylvia, you need a guardian,” he said with a
smile, as he relieved her of the great bunch of ferns
she carried. “Aunt Lina was about to have a
nervous collapse when your message came.”
“Really, Reece?” she returned gaily, as they
climbed the steps together. “Why it could not have
been later than six, when Sanders rang the house
up. ’ ’
“Seven thirty, by the hall clock, Miss War
renton. ’ ’
“Absurd! You are teasing me!”
“No, little girl,” he said, “it is the simple
truth,” a touch of gravity in his voice, “for while
you have not been to church recently, you are
doubtless aware of the fact, that it is not custom-
THE MISSION GIRL
By Odessa Strickland Payne,
Author of "Psyche, ” "Esther Perrall’s Experiment,” Etc.
The Golden Age for May 28, 1908.
ary, in the city, to have services at six o’clock.”
Miss Warrenton laughed, and then she made him
a sweeping courtesy, full of grace and charm, as
they paused in the brilliantly lighted hall. The
tall mission clock stood on the first landing of the
grand stairway, and the jardinieres of growing
palms disposed about the room, with the high cabi
net mantel of mahogany; the light beating against
the stained glass of a large window 7 above the second
landing, all made a beautiful environment with
which the young people radiantly harmonized.
“I feel like it was ten thirty now,” Sylvia
assented, “I am so hungry. Wait a moment, until
I have made myself presentable for the evening:
and then if your royal highness will accompany a
Bohemian girl like me to the dining room, I’ll
tell you all about my escape into God’s country.”
Dr. Reece Redmond sat down resignedly in a
leather chair, and Sylvia tripped up the stairway,
humming softly the fragment of an operatic aria.
Ten minutes later the girl emerged in a dark red
silk, made with a corsage waist, which was relieved
by a white lace yoke and sleeves.
Reece threw his newspaper down, and surveyed
the vision on the steps with approving eyes.
“The butler and the cook,” he explained, as he
led the way down the hall, and pushed open a fold
ing door, “have both decamped; but I expect that
you can find some boiled ham and pickles, and angel
cake, somewhere. In fact, I dimly remember hear
ing Aunt Lina order your supper put on the table,
before she retired. She spoils you hotribly, Sylvia,
and X think that it is distinctly bad form to make
such a difference between us.”
Miss Warrenton slipped into the chair he set back
from the elegantly appointed table for her; then
she lifted her eyes of merry, mocking brown, regard
ing his handsome face critically.
“Reece, you are obliged to be aware of the fact,”
she asserted blandly, “that Aunt Lina belongs to
the old regime, the kind of women who burn their
incense at masculine shrines ad infinitum. She
does not spoil you,” she said with emphasis on the
personal pronoun, “she worships you.”
“Don’t!” the young man threw out his hand with
a gesture of appeal. “I don’t like that word in
connection with mortals.”
“Then, I withdraw it,” his cousin answered
sweetly as she took an olive. “Now be good and
I’ll begin my confession. The woods are a dream,
a regular Easter dream; and if Rodney Hill had
been with me this afternoon, my ride would have
seemed like a whirl through Paradise.”
Dr. Redmond frowned as he drew a diagonal
figure on the white satin damask of the table cloth,
with a silver fork.
“Who is he?” he demanded in a rich, vibrant
tone. “Another satellite doomed to revolve around
your brilliant shrine for a brief period?”
“No, I hope,” Sylvia answered gently, “that he
is going to prove to be a real friend.”
“How many have you in that class?” he inquired
in a tone of serious interest.
“Very few,” she replied quietly. “But listen!
I did something to please you tonight. I stopped
for church at the Merrill Mission. That block is
certainly a grand investment for the unfortunate
class of humanity, and I do not wonder at your
infatuation for your ward at the infirmary. But
it must present a strong contrast to the other half
of your life.”
“Rather,” her cousin replied, “it keeps what
you would call the brighter half of my existence
from submerging me.”
“How?”
“Well, I do not think that a society life is
conducive to the making of real manhood.”
“But you do not go out a great deal, Reece.”
“If I did,” he said, with a light laugh as they
left the table, “there would not be much of me left
to go. ”
The door of the sitting room stood open, and Miss
Warrenton walked into it, while her cousin saunter
ed up stairs.
Suddenly, through the silence which brooded over
the mansion there arose a soft strain of music;
silver scales of sound, that deepened into notes of
color, until the whole building was flooded with the
melody.
Dr. Redmond came out of his room and leaned
carelessly against the carved baustrade.
Down in the hall below, with the palms for a
background, and her eyes lifted to the stained glass
of the window, Sylvia stood, with a violin under
her chin, playing, with no thought of an audience.
The light touched her brown hair and revealed the
expression of her pale, rapt face, as well as the
lovely lines of the figure in the rich evening dress.
What was it the girl was trying to make her violin
say? Reece dropped softly to his knees, determined
to solve the problem. The strings of the violin
pulsed with the message of the music, with deepen
ing chords of exquisite power and pathos, each note
rising in beauty and intensity to a melodious climax.
The body of the young musician swayed with the
feeling which found its voice in the violin; and the
bow in the white hand gleamed like a braided band
of light across the quivering strings. It made you
think first of the blush of the dawn and the awaken
ing of Summer-birds, and then the strokes deepened
and material things vanished, as the husic
soared to the high lands of the spirit, the unspeak
able things, beautiful, tender, true, for which we
have no
As the bow in Sylvia’s hands swept for the last
time across the strings, and the melody vanished
into the charmed silence, Reece applauded softly.
“Bravo!” he exclaimed, with kindling eyes. “I
am going to the club, but before I go I want to ask
you a question. Wait!”
Reece came down the stairs; and, as he saw his
cousin at that moment he never forgot her, while
she stood, graceful and lovely, with the tall palms
as a background. The light of her dream was still
in her eyes, and her violin trailed from one white
hand at her side. He paused upon the last step.
“That was a most original composition, Sylvia,”
he said gently, “tell me what you desired to ex
press. ’ ’
“Oh, that was nothing,” she exclaimed with a
sigh, like one half awake, “but a musical thought
that I was trying to send to a friend.”
He came nearer and looked searchingly into the
brown eyes.
“To whom?” he inquired.
But the girl shook her head, and, turning away,
laid her violin and bow gently down in a velvet
lined case.
“Do you desire me to interpret it,” he said
lightly, “as a musical love letter to Rodney Hill?”
‘ 1 Why not ?’ ’ Sylvia answered proudly. But there
was a flush on her .cheek and a look in her eyes
which made her cousin repent of his raillery.
“I beg your pardon, little girl,” he said with an
inscrutable smile. “I did not mean to be rude.
Don’t sit up late or you will lose your roses. Good
night.
The great door slammed softly shut after the
erect figure; and Miss Warrenton trailed up the
grand stairway slowly.
“Reece does not like Rodney Hill,” she said
softly to herself. “I wonder why? It seems to me
the gods have been lavish in their gifts to him.
He is cultured, handsome and rich, and good also
in the American definition of the word —which
means that he gives largely to charity. What more
could a girl ask?”
Miss Warrenton entered her room and turned up
the gas. It was her own private sitting room and
the charm of her individual taste was revealed. Her
books were on hanging shelves, and her piano was
wide open. The curtains at the windows were of
cream net, and there was a quaint old fashioned
(Continued on Page Seven.)
