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esus, burned clear for a moment and
vanished. Lastly, she saw the brok
en, segregated columns of the House
of Triptolemus, in Pompeii. What did
these hurried visions mean —a trip to
Europe and the Holy Land?
• With a slight gasp, an indefined
feeling of faintness, at the almost
savage whirl of mental pictures, she
came back to her immediate sur
roundings, and watched the sun-lances
strike fair, a dreaming bust of Pallas,
by a glass side-door.
She left the marble steps, trailed
by a long glass, set deep within the
mahogany paneling, and bowed to her
own reflection of sheer young beauty,
the charming personality presented
in the dark hair, the starry eyes, the
half-parted lips—and, with a slight
shock of nerves, a distinct return out
of Dreamland, she came full upon the
veiled majesty of “The Pit and the
Pendulum.”
She steadied herself, by resting her
fishing-rod on the polished floor, and
thus began:
“O Sphinx of Horror! O Symbol of
Terror! I have created thee, for a pur
pose. But, it would take the Shade
of Michael Angelo, to tell me the
truth about w’hat I have done. Aunt
Fan intimates to me, that your tragic
face resembles Burwood Morris —my
father’s groceryman. Bah! Do I be
lieve it? Oh! Art insulted, I fear that
there is a bitter grain of truth in
what she says. What I have
painted, I have painted. And you,
Mr. Morris, will never see it —
or know it —and my friends are
not very clever at discovering my
models —and so —I will not worry.
Shillah, Shillon, Shilleh!” as the frag
ment of a Moravian trumpet song rose
to her lips, “why should I? Then
again, with one honest daub of paint,
or a little use of the scraper, I could
eliminate the face, and substitute one
that means nothing to me or to any
one else. So, as I have the power to
destroy or eliminate, by using these
five white fingers a trifle, I will not
lose my poise. Tra la! Mr. Burwood
Morris, Sieur Burwood Morris, Mon
sieur Burwood Morris, I go a-fishing,
after the manner of the Apostles, on
Millwood creek. Wish me luck!”
The blue curtain stirred, ever so
slightly, as if some one had breathed
—behind the blue veil.
She bowed low and mockingly, and
without one supertitious thought,
stepped boldly through the glass door,
and out on the green April lawn, into
the clear, ghost-killing April sunshine.
For the first time in days, the sun
was silver. The baleful, ominous red
was gone, and long, blue and violet
bands of clouds, were drawn, softly,
across the Gates of the West.
It was a sunset of peace.
From his station, in the fragrant ap
ple orchard, the Spirit of Chance
stretched his wings and arched his
eyebrows, at the vision of Rose
Churchill. After all, telepathy worked,
sometimes.
The he-goat left off butting the
dead tree trunk, when Miss Churchill
appeared in the meadow. He consid
ered her progress across his grassy
domains, thoughtfully.
“I don’t fill up my fish-baskets, as a
usual thing, with revolvers,” Rose in
formed him, over her shoulder, in
creasing her pace, “but this time, Sir
William, I happen to have one, don’t
you know, and, if you chase me, I
shall shoot. So, if you are wise
hearted, just continue to butt over
that dead tree, please!”
The he-goat rolled over the trunk
with renewed energy.
“Thank you,” smiled Rose. She
climbed over a low wall, sweet with
the scent of apple blooms, and, look
ing back at the goat, she said. “I’ll
give you a little impromptu sonnet,
for your good courtesy, sir. Let me
see. How is this?”
“Ros-y had a Willium Goat, Willium
Goat,
He followed her to fish;
He butted o’er the dickey boat,
And, he was sold, for c-a-s-h!”
“Trala! Tirila! Tirila! By the river
sang Sir Lancelot!’J
She waved the goat adieu, and
broke into peals of laughter. Then,
she tossed her fishing-rod toward the
gay April sky, and with the lilt of a
song on her lips, went onward to Mill
wood creek. Like a band-master plays
with his baton, so she kept her rod in
motion, for she was young with the
world, that gracious April afternoon,
for Fate had, so far, smiled upon her.
Wood doves whirled by, under the
blue dome of the laughing sky, swift
ly, as if they had the wings of mer
cury. But she did not know that the
Spirit of Chance was dodging her
footsteps.
The west wind freshened a bit, and
the long, violet sunset cloud bands,
rose to meet the hissing chariot of the
sun-god Apollo, as its resplendent sil
ver axles whirled downward. In an
hour or two another day would go up
in burnt sacrifice, from the horns of
the Altar of Time.
With all her riches, all her social
prestige, Life had given her only faint
gleams of the Master Passion. The
great love that may come only once to
a loyal woman’s heart had been per
sistently denied. Admirers she had
had, by the score, and parma violets,
her favorite flower, had been wasted,
bountifully, at the shrine of her love
liness, but she had watched them
wither and fade, with but slight emo
tion.
The great deeps of her nature had
never been stirred.
In his hut, far up the foothills, the
Shepherd of Solitude was singing, and
a thin blue line of smoke, creeping
from the chimney, told that he was
preparing for supper. About the hut,
the honeysuckles seemed to linger
longest, and the white oaks put forth
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The Golden Age for April 14, 1910.
their deepest verdure of silver shade.
When Rose reached her favorite
pool- alder-hung, willow-guarded, she
selected a likable bait, cast her line
with languid skill, threw herself flat
on the green grass, swung a dainty
brown legging in mid air, and trolled
for gold-bellied perch. The slow, lo
tus current swept her line down
stream, and the brown legging came
down, by-and-by to keep company with
its fail* neighbor.
Lines from the “Lotus Eaters” ech
oed and re-echoed through her tired
brain; the milk-white eyelids veiled
the mystic, black eyes, the long silk
en lashes swept the satin of her cheek
—and she slept.
“Surely, surely, slumber is more
sweet than toil, the shore,
Than labor in the deep mid-ocean,
wind and wave and oar;
O rest, ye brother mariners, we will
not wander more.”
Rounding a bend, in the musical,
willow-veiled creek, a man, travel
stained, weary with a long day’s fish
ing, almost stumbled upon—the Sleep
ing Beauty.
His dark eyes gleamed, with sud
den triumph, his weariness left him,
as if by magic.
He suppressed a fierce, primeval de
sire to kiss the twin rosebuds of her
parted lips, and, with strong emotion,
his face pale to ghastliness, he step
ped back a respectful distance, taking
off his hat, and wiping the damp per
spiration from his well-developed
forehead. He set his under-jaw dog
gedly.
Then, with swift, incisive glances,
he stamped her sweet image upon his
soul, to burn there forever, as the un
quenchable fires of the Magi, on the
purple mountains of Media, flamed
through the watches of golden nights
long dead.
The deep agony of his heart broke
forth in a prayer:
“My God—my God —my God —be
merciful unto me. This is like a vis
ion of Paradise for me to be allowed
to view such beauty as I never saw be
fore, as I may never see again. Sinful,
wicked, hopeless as I am, I thank Thee.
Save me, I beseech you, from every
low pursuit, because Thou hast per-
mitted me to look upon the face of
one of Thy earthly angels!”
He stepped forward, and bending
down, murmured:
“The little girl—the precious little
girl! ”
And, in truth, she seemed like a
child, in all the deep innocence of
her lotus sleep.
Then he forced himse’f away to go
back to the place where he had been
standing. A man’s terrible tears wet
his cheeks. He saw the sky and earth
through a mist. Over the battlements
of high Heaven Raphael, the tender
hearted angel must have leaned, at
the moment, to watch that tragic
storm of a strong man’s soul.
“Cursed be the social wants that sin
against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp
us from the living truth.”
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