Verbal Expression

by Eleanor H. Porter

SISTER KATE
At the station Mrs. Hartwell’s train was found
to be gratifyingly on time; and in due course
Billy was extending a cordial welcome to a tall,
handsome woman who carried herself with an
unmistakable air of assured competence.  Accompanying
her was a little girl with big blue eyes
and yellow curls.

“I am very glad to see you both,” smiled Billy,
holding out a friendly hand to Mrs. Hartwell,
and stooping to kiss the round cheek of the little
girl.

“Thank you, you are very kind,” murmured
the lady; “but–are you alone, Billy?  Where
are the boys?”

“Uncle William is out of town, and Cyril is
rushed to death and sent his excuses.  Bertram
did mean to come, but he telephoned this morning
that he couldn’t, after all.  I’m sorry, but I’m
afraid you’ll have to make the best of just me,”
condoled Billy.  “They’ll be out to the house this
evening, of course–all but Uncle William.  He
doesn’t return until to-morrow.”

“Oh, doesn’t he?” murmured the lady, reaching
for her daughter’s hand.

Billy looked down with a smile.

“And this is little Kate, I suppose,” she said,
“whom I haven’t seen for such a long, long time.
Let me see, you are how old now?”

“I’m eight.  I’ve been eight six weeks.”

Billy’s eyes twinkled.

“And you don’t remember me, I suppose.”

The little girl shook her head.

“No; but I know who you are,” she added,
with shy eagerness.  “You’re going to be my
Aunt Billy, and you’re going to marry my Uncle
William–I mean, my Uncle Bertram.”

Billy’s face changed color.  Mrs. Hartwell
gave a despairing gesture.

“Kate, my dear, I told you to be sure and
remember that it was your Uncle Bertram now.
You see,” she added in a discouraged aside to
Billy, “she can’t seem to forget the first one.
But then, what can you expect?” laughed Mrs.
Hartwell, a little disagreeably.  “Such abrupt
changes from one brother to another are somewhat
disconcerting, you know.”

Billy bit her lip.  For a moment she said nothing,
then, a little constrainedly, she rejoined:

“Perhaps.  Still–let us hope we have the
right one, now.”

Mrs. Hartwell raised her eyebrows.

“Well, my dear, I’m not so confident of that.
_My_ choice has been and always will be–William.”

Billy bit her lip again.  This time her brown
eyes flashed a little.

“Is that so?  But you see, after all, _you_ aren’t
making the–the choice.”  Billy spoke lightly,
gayly; and she ended with a bright little laugh, as
if to hide any intended impertinence.

It was Mrs. Hartwell’s turn to bite her lip–
and she did it.

“So it seems,” she rejoined frigidly, after the
briefest of pauses.

It was not until they were on their way to
Corey Hill some time later that Mrs. Hartwell
turned with the question:

“Cyril is to be married in church, I suppose?”

“No.  They both preferred a home wedding.”

“Oh, what a pity!  Church weddings are so
attractive!”

“To those who like them,” amended Billy in
spite of herself.

“To every one, I think,” corrected Mrs.
Hartwell, positively.

Billy laughed.  She was beginning to discern
that it did not do much harm–nor much good
–to disagree with her guest.

“It’s in the evening, then, of course?”
pursued Mrs. Hartwell.

“No; at noon.”

“Oh, how could you let them?”

“But they preferred it, Mrs. Hartwell.”

“What if they did?” retorted the lady, sharply.
“Can’t you do as you please in your own home?
Evening weddings are so much prettier!  We
can’t change now, of course, with the guests all
invited.  That is, I suppose you do have guests!”

Mrs. Hartwell’s voice was aggrievedly despairing.

“Oh, yes,” smiled Billy, demurely.  “We have
guests invited–and I’m afraid we can’t change
the time.”

“No, of course not; but it’s too bad.  I
conclude there are announcements only, as I got no
cards.

“Announcements only,” bowed Billy.

“I wish Cyril had consulted _me_, a little, about
this affair.”

Billy did not answer.  She could not trust herself
to speak just then.  Cyril’s words of two
days before were in her ears:  “Yes, and it will
give Big Kate time to try to make your breakfast
supper, and your roses pinks–or sunflowers.”

In a moment Mrs. Hartwell spoke again.

“Of course a noon wedding is quite pretty
if you darken the rooms and have lights–you’re
going to do that, I suppose?”

Billy shook her head slowly.

“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Hartwell.  That isn’t
the plan, now.”

“Not darken the rooms!” exclaimed Mrs.
Hartwell.  “Why, it won’t–”  She stopped
suddenly, and fell back in her seat.  The look of
annoyed disappointment gave way to one of
confident relief.  “But then, _that can_ be changed,”
she finished serenely.

Billy opened her lips, but she shut them without
speaking.  After a minute she opened them again.

“You might consult–Cyril–about that,”
she said in a quiet voice.

“Yes, I will,” nodded Mrs. Hartwell, brightly.
She was looking pleased and happy again.  “I
love weddings.  Don’t you?  You can _do_ so much
with them!”

“Can you?” laughed Billy, irrepressibly.

“Yes.  Cyril is happy, of course.  Still, I
can’t imagine _him_ in love with any woman.”

“I think Marie can.”

“I suppose so.  I don’t seem to remember her
much; still, I think I saw her once or twice when
I was on last June.  Music teacher, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.  She is a very sweet girl.”

“Hm-m; I suppose so.  Still, I think ‘twould
have been better if Cyril could have selected some
one that _wasn’t_ musical–say a more domestic
wife.  He’s so terribly unpractical himself about
household matters.”

Billy gave a ringing laugh and stood up.  The
car had come to a stop before her own door.

“Do you?  Just you wait till you see Marie’s
trousseau of–egg-beaters and cake tins,” she
chuckled.

Mrs. Hartwell looked blank.

“Whatever in the world do you mean, Billy?”
she demanded fretfully, as she followed her hostess
from the car.  “I declare! aren’t you ever going
to grow beyond making those absurd remarks
of yours?”

“Maybe–sometime,” laughed Billy, as she
took little Kate’s hand and led the way up the
steps.

Luncheon in the cozy dining-room at Hillside
that day was not entirely a success.  At least
there were not present exactly the harmony and
tranquillity that are conceded to be the best
sauce for one’s food.  The wedding, of course,
was the all-absorbing topic of conversation; and
Billy, between Aunt Hannah’s attempts to be
polite, Marie’s to be sweet-tempered, Mrs. Hartwell’s
to be dictatorial, and her own to be pacifying
as well as firm, had a hard time of it.  If it had
not been for two or three diversions created by
little Kate, the meal would have been, indeed, a
dismal failure.

But little Kate–most of the time the
personification of proper little-girlhood–had a
disconcerting faculty of occasionally dropping a
word here, or a question there, with startling
effect.  As, for instance, when she asked Billy
“Who’s going to boss your wedding?” and again
when she calmly informed her mother that when _she_
was married she was not going to have any wedding
at all to bother with, anyhow.  She was going to
elope, and she should choose somebody’s chauffeur,
because he’d know how to go the farthest and fastest
so her mother couldn’t catch up with her and
tell her how she ought to have done it.

After luncheon Aunt Hannah went up-stairs
for rest and recuperation.  Marie took little Kate
and went for a brisk walk–for the same
purpose.  This left Billy alone with her guest.

“Perhaps you would like a nap, too, Mrs.
Hartwell,” suggested Billy, as they passed into
the living-room.  There was a curious note of almost
hopefulness in her voice.

Mrs. Hartwell scorned naps, and she said so
very emphatically.  She said something else, too.

“Billy, why do you always call me `Mrs. Hartwell’
in that stiff, formal fashion?  You used to
call me `Aunt Kate.’ ”

“But I was very young then.”  Billy’s voice
was troubled.  Billy had been trying so hard for
the last two hours to be the graciously cordial
hostess to this woman–Bertram’s sister.

“Very true.  Then why not `Kate’ now?”

Billy hesitated.  She was wondering why it
seemed so hard to call Mrs. Hartwell “Kate.”

“Of course,” resumed the lady, “when you’re
Bertram’s wife and my sister–”

“Why, of course,” cried Billy, in a sudden
flood of understanding.  Curiously enough, she
had never before thought of Mrs. Hartwell as _her_
sister.  “I shall be glad to call you `Kate’–if
you like.”

“Thank you.  I shall like it very much, Billy,”
nodded the other cordially.  “Indeed, my dear,
I’m very fond of you, and I was delighted to hear
you were to be my sister.  If only–it could have
stayed William instead of Bertram.”

“But it couldn’t,” smiled Billy.  “It wasn’t
William–that I loved.”

“But _Bertram!_–it’s so absurd.”

“Absurd!”  The smile was gone now.

“Yes.  Forgive me, Billy, but I was about as
much surprised to hear of Bertram’s engagement
as I was of Cyril’s.”

Billy grew a little white.

“But Bertram was never an avowed–woman-
hater, like Cyril, was he?”

“ `Woman-hater’–dear me, no!  He was
a woman-lover, always.  As if his eternal `Face
of a Girl’ didn’t prove that!  Bertram has always
loved women–to paint.  But as for his ever
taking them seriously–why, Billy, what’s the
matter?”

Billy had risen suddenly.

“If you’ll excuse me, please, just a few
minutes,” Billy said very quietly.  “I want to
speak to Rosa in the kitchen.  I’ll be back–soon.”

In the kitchen Billy spoke to Rosa–she
wondered afterwards what she said.  Certainly she did
not stay in the kitchen long enough to say much.
In her own room a minute later, with the door
fast closed, she took from her table the photograph
of Bertram and held it in her two hands,
talking to it softly, but a little wildly.

“I didn’t listen!  I didn’t stay!  Do you hear?
I came to you.  She shall not say anything that
will make trouble between you and me.  I’ve
suffered enough through her already!  And she
doesn’t know–she didn’t know before, and she
doesn’t now.  She’s only imagining.  I will not
not–not believe that you love me–just to
paint.  No matter what they say–all of them!
I will not!”

Billy put the photograph back on the table
then, and went down-stairs to her guest.  She
smiled brightly, though her face was a little pale.

“I wondered if perhaps you wouldn’t like some
music,” she said pleasantly, going straight to
the piano.

“Indeed I would!” agreed Mrs. Hartwell.

Billy sat down then and played–played as
Mrs. Hartwell had never heard her play before.

“Why, Billy, you amaze me,” she cried, when
the pianist stopped and whirled about.  “I had
no idea you could play like that!”

Billy smiled enigmatically.  Billy was thinking
that Mrs. Hartwell would, indeed, have been
surprised if she had known that in that playing
were herself, the ride home, the luncheon, Bertram,
and the girl–whom Bertram did not love only
to paint!

by Edgar Allan Poe
  Lo! ’tis a gala night
    Within the lonesome latter years!
  An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
    In veils, and drowned in tears,
  Sit in a theatre, to see
    A play of hopes and fears,
  While the orchestra breathes fitfully
    The music of the spheres.

  Mimes, in the form of God on high,
    Mutter and mumble low,
  And hither and thither fly–
    Mere puppets they, who come and go
  At bidding of vast formless things
    That shift the scenery to and fro,
  Flapping from out their Condor wings
    Invisible Wo!

  That motley drama–oh, be sure
    It shall not be forgot!
  With its Phantom chased for evermore,
    By a crowd that seize it not,
  Through a circle that ever returneth in
    To the self-same spot,
  And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
    And Horror the soul of the plot.

  But see, amid the mimic rout
    A crawling shape intrude!
  A blood-red thing that writhes from out
    The scenic solitude!
  It writhes!–it writhes!–with mortal pangs
    The mimes become its food,
  And the angels sob at vermin fangs
    In human gore imbued.

  Out–out are the lights–out all!
    And, over each quivering form,
  The curtain, a funeral pall,
    Comes down with the rush of a storm,
  And the angels, all pallid and wan,
    Uprising, unveiling, affirm
  That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
    And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

by Eleanor H. Porter

A CLOCK AND AUNT HANNAH
Mrs. Kate Hartwell, the Henshaw brothers’
sister from the West, was expected on the tenth.
Her husband could not come, she had written,
but she would bring with her, little Kate, the
youngest child.  The boys, Paul and Egbert,
would stay with their father.

Billy received the news of little Kate’s coming
with outspoken delight.

“The very thing!” she cried.  “We’ll have
her for a flower girl.  She was a dear little creature,
as I remember her.”

Aunt Hannah gave a sudden low laugh.

“Yes, I remember,” she observed.  “Kate
told me, after you spent the first day with her,
that you graciously informed her that little Kate
was almost as nice as Spunk.  Kate did not fully
appreciate the compliment, I fear.”

Billy made a wry face.

“Did I say that?  Dear me!  I _was_ a terror
in those days, wasn’t I?  But then,” and she
laughed softly, “really, Aunt Hannah, that was
the prettiest thing I knew how to say, for I
considered Spunk the top-notch of desirability.”

“I think I should have liked to know Spunk,”
smiled Marie from the other side of the sewing
table.

“He was a dear,” declared Billy.  “I had
another ‘most as good when I first came to Hillside,
but he got lost.  For a time it seemed as if I never
wanted another, but I’ve about come to the conclusion
now that I do, and I’ve told Bertram to find
one for me if he can.  You see I shall be lonesome
after you’re gone, Marie, and I’ll have to have
_something_,” she finished mischievously.

“Oh, I don’t mind the inference–as long as
I know your admiration of cats,” laughed Marie.

“Let me see; Kate writes she is coming the
tenth,” murmured Aunt Hannah, going back
to the letter in her hand.

“Good!” nodded Billy.  “That will give time
to put little Kate through her paces as flower
girl.”

“Yes, and it will give Big Kate time to _try_ to
make your breakfast a supper, and your roses
pinks–or sunflowers,” cut in a new voice, dryly.

“Cyril!” chorussed the three ladies in horror,
adoration, and amusement–according to whether
the voice belonged to Aunt Hannah, Marie, or
Billy.

Cyril shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

“I beg your pardon,” he apologized; “but
Rosa said you were in here sewing, and I told
her not to bother.  I’d announce myself.  Just
as I got to the door I chanced to hear Billy’s
speech, and I couldn’t resist making the amendment.
Maybe you’ve forgotten Kate’s love of
managing–but I haven’t,” he finished, as he
sauntered over to the chair nearest Marie.

“No, I haven’t–forgotten,” observed Billy,
meaningly.

“Nor I–nor anybody else,” declared a
severe voice–both the words and the severity
being most extraordinary as coming from the
usually gentle Aunt Hannah.

“Oh, well, never mind,” spoke up Billy, quickly.
“Everything’s all right now, so let’s forget it.
She always meant it for kindness, I’m sure.”

“Even when she told you in the first place
what a–er–torment you were to us?” quizzed
Cyril.

“Yes,” flashed Billy.  “She was being kind to
_you_, then.”

“Humph!” vouchsafed Cyril.

For a moment no one spoke.  Cyril’s eyes were
on Marie, who was nervously trying to smooth
back a few fluffy wisps of hair that had escaped
from restraining combs and pins.

“What’s the matter with the hair, little girl?”
asked Cyril in a voice that was caressingly irritable.
“You’ve been fussing with that long-
suffering curl for the last five minutes!”

Marie’s delicate face flushed painfully.

“It’s got loose–my hair,” she stammered,
“and it looks so dowdy that way!”

Billy dropped her thread suddenly.  She sprang
for it at once, before Cyril could make a move to
get it.  She had to dive far under a chair to capture
it–which may explain why her face was so
very red when she finally reached her seat again.
On the morning of the tenth, Billy, Marie, and
Aunt Hannah were once more sewing together,
this time in the little sitting-room at the end of
the hall up-stairs.

Billy’s fingers, in particular, were flying very
fast.

“I told John to have Peggy at the door at
eleven,” she said, after a time; “but I think I
can finish running in this ribbon before then.  I
haven’t much to do to get ready to go.”

“I hope Kate’s train won’t be late,” worried
Aunt Hannah.

“I hope not,” replied Billy; “but I told Rosa
to delay luncheon, anyway, till we get here.  I–”
She stopped abruptly and turned a listening ear
toward the door of Aunt Hannah’s room, which
was open.  A clock was striking.  “Mercy!
that can’t be eleven now,” she cried.  “But it
must be–it was ten before I came up-stairs.”
She got to her feet hurriedly.

Aunt Hannah put out a restraining hand.

“No, no, dear, that’s half-past ten.”

“But it struck eleven.”

“Yes, I know.  It does–at half-past ten.”

“Why, the little wretch,” laughed Billy,
dropping back into her chair and picking up her work
again.  “The idea of its telling fibs like that and
frightening people half out of their lives!  I’ll
have it fixed right away.  Maybe John can do it
–he’s always so handy about such things.”

“But I don’t want it fixed,” demurred Aunt
Hannah.

Billy stared a little.

“You don’t want it fixed!  Maybe you like
to have it strike eleven when it’s half-past ten!”
Billy’s voice was merrily sarcastic.

“Y-yes, I do,” stammered the lady,
apologetically.  “You see, I–I worked very hard to
fix it so it would strike that way.”

“_Aunt Hannah!_”

“Well, I did,” retorted the lady, with
unexpected spirit.  “I wanted to know what time it
was in the night–I’m awake such a lot.”

“But I don’t see.”  Billy’s eyes were perplexed.
“Why must you make it tell fibs in order to–to
find out the truth?” she laughed.

Aunt Hannah elevated her chin a little.

“Because that clock was always striking one.”

“One!”

“Yes–half-past, you know; and I never
knew which half-past it was.”

“But it must strike half-past now, just the
same!”

“It does.”  There was the triumphant ring of
the conqueror in Aunt Hannah’s voice.  “But
now it strikes half-past _on the hour_, and the clock
in the hall tells me _then_ what time it is, so I don’t
care.”

For one more brief minute Billy stared, before
a sudden light of understanding illumined her
face.  Then her laugh rang out gleefully.

“Oh, Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hannah,” she
gurgled.  “If Bertram wouldn’t call you the limit
–making a clock strike eleven so you’ll know it’s
half-past ten!”

Aunt Hannah colored a little, but she stood
her ground.

“Well, there’s only half an hour, anyway, now,
that I don’t know what time it is,” she maintained,
“for one or the other of those clocks strikes the
hour every thirty minutes.  Even during those
never-ending three ones that strike one after
the other in the middle of the night, I can tell
now, for the hall clock has a different sound for
the half-hours, you know, so I can tell whether
it’s one or a half-past.”

“Of course,” chuckled Billy.

“I’m sure I think it’s a splendid idea,” chimed
in Marie, valiantly; “and I’m going to write it
to mother’s Cousin Jane right away.  She’s an
invalid, and she’s always lying awake nights
wondering what time it is.  The doctor says
actually he believes she’d get well if he could find
some way of letting her know the time at night,
so she’d get some sleep; for she simply can’t
go to sleep till she knows.  She can’t bear a light
in the room, and it wakes her all up to turn an
electric switch, or anything of that kind.”

“Why doesn’t she have one of those phosphorous
things?” questioned Billy.

Marie laughed quietly.

“She did.  I sent her one,–and she stood it
just one night.”

“Stood it!”

“Yes.  She declared it gave her the creeps,
and that she wouldn’t have the spooky thing
staring at her all night like that.  So it’s got to
be something she can hear, and I’m going to
tell her Mrs. Stetson’s plan right away.”

“Well, I’m sure I wish you would,” cried that
lady, with prompt interest; “and she’ll like it,
I’m sure.  And tell her if she can hear a _town_
clock strike, it’s just the same, and even better;
for there aren’t any half-hours at all to think of
there.”

“I will–and I think it’s lovely,” declared
Marie.

“Of course it’s lovely,” smiled Billy, rising;
“but I fancy I’d better go and get ready to meet
Mrs. Hartwell, or the `lovely’ thing will be telling
me that it’s half-past eleven!”  And she
tripped laughingly from the room.

Promptly at the appointed time John with
Peggy drew up before the door, and Billy, muffled
in furs, stepped into the car, which, with its
protecting top and sides and glass wind-shield, was
in its winter dress.

“Yes’m, ’tis a little chilly, Miss,” said John,
in answer to her greeting, as he tucked the heavy
robes about her.

“Oh, well, I shall be very comfortable, I’m
sure,” smiled Billy.  “Just don’t drive too rapidly,
specially coming home.  I shall have to get a
limousine, I think, when my ship comes in, John.”

John’s grizzled old face twitched.  So evident
were the words that were not spoken that Billy
asked laughingly:

“Well, John, what is it?”

John reddened furiously.

“Nothing, Miss.  I was only thinkin’ that if
you didn’t ‘tend ter haulin’ in so many other
folks’s ships, yours might get in sooner.”

“Why, John!  Nonsense!  I–I love to haul
in other folks’s ships,” laughed the girl, embarrassedly.

“Yes, Miss; I know you do,” grunted John.

Billy colored.

“No, no–that is, I mean–I don’t do it–
very much,” she stammered.

John did not answer apparently; but Billy
was sure she caught a low-muttered, indignant
“much!” as he snapped the door shut and took
his place at the wheel.

To herself she laughed softly.  She thought she
possessed the secret now of some of John’s
disapproving glances toward her humble guests of
the summer before.

by Edgar Allan Poe

I.        How shall the burial rite be read?
            The solemn song be sung?
          The requiem for the loveliest dead,
            That ever died so young?
II.       Her friends are gazing on her,
            And on her gaudy bier,
          And weep!–oh! to dishonor
            Dead beauty with a tear!
III.     They loved her for her wealth–
           And they hated her for her pride–
          But she grew in feeble health,
            And they _love_ her–that she died.
IV.      They tell me (while they speak
           Of her “costly broider’d pall”)
         That my voice is growing weak–
           That I should not sing at all–
V.       Or that my tone should be
           Tun’d to such solemn song
         So mournfully–so mournfully,
           That the dead may feel no wrong.
VI.      But she is gone above,
           With young Hope at her side,
         And I am drunk with love
           Of the dead, who is my bride.–

VII.     Of the dead–dead who lies
           All perfum’d there,
         With the death upon her eyes.
           And the life upon her hair.
VIII.    Thus on the coffin loud and long
           I strike–the murmur sent
         Through the gray chambers to my song,
           Shall be the accompaniment.
IX.      Thou diedst in thy life’s June–
           But thou didst not die too fair:
         Thou didst not die too soon,
           Nor with too calm an air.
X.       From more than friends on earth,
           Thy life and love are riven,
         To join the untainted mirth
           Of more than thrones in heaven.–
XI.      Therefore, to thee this night
           I will no requiem raise,
         But waft thee on thy flight,
           With a Pæan of old days.

 by Emily Dickinson
‘T was a long parting, but the time
For interview had come;
Before the judgment-seat of God,
The last and second time

These fleshless lovers met,
A heaven in a gaze,
A heaven of heavens, the privilege
Of one another’s eyes.

No lifetime set on them,
Apparelled as the new
Unborn, except they had beheld,
Born everlasting now.

Was bridal e’er like this?
A paradise, the host,
And cherubim and seraphim
The most familiar guest.

by Edgar Allan Poe
  In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
    “Whose heart-strings are a lute;”
  None sing so wildly well
  As the angel Israfel,
  And the giddy Stars (so legends tell),
  Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
    Of his voice, all mute.

  Tottering above
    In her highest noon,
    The enamoured Moon
  Blushes with love,
    While, to listen, the red levin
    (With the rapid Pleiads, even,
    Which were seven),
    Pauses in Heaven.

  And they say (the starry choir
    And the other listening things)
  That Israfeli’s fire
  Is owing to that lyre
    By which he sits and sings–
  The trembling living wire
  Of those unusual strings.

  But the skies that angel trod,
    Where deep thoughts are a duty–
  Where Love’s a grow-up God–
    Where the Houri glances are
  Imbued with all the beauty
    Which we worship in a star.

  Therefore, thou art not wrong,
    Israfeli, who despisest
  An unimpassioned song;
  To thee the laurels belong,
    Best bard, because the wisest!
  Merrily live and long!

  The ecstasies above
    With thy burning measures suit–
  Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
    With the fervor of thy lute–
    Well may the stars be mute!

  Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
    Is a world of sweets and sours;
    Our flowers are merely–flowers,
  And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
    Is the sunshine of ours.

  If I could dwell
  Where Israfel
    Hath dwelt, and he where I,
  He might not sing so wildly well
    A mortal melody,
  While a bolder note than this might swell
    From my lyre within the sky.

by Edgar Allan Poe
          How often we forget all time, when lone
          Admiring Nature’s universal throne;
          Her woods–her wilds–her mountains–the intense
          Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!
I.        In youth I have known one with whom the Earth
            In secret communing held–as he with it,
          In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
            Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
          From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
            A passionate light such for his spirit was fit–
          And yet that spirit knew–not in the hour
            Of its own fervor–what had o’er it power.
II.       Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
            To a ferver [1] by the moonbeam that hangs o’er,
          But I will half believe that wild light fraught
            With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
          Hath ever told–or is it of a thought
            The unembodied essence, and no more
          That with a quickening spell doth o’er us pass
            As dew of the night-time, o’er the summer grass?
III.      Doth o’er us pass, when, as th’ expanding eye
            To the loved object–so the tear to the lid
          Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
            And yet it need not be–(that object) hid
          From us in life–but common–which doth lie
            Each hour before us–but then only bid
          With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken
            T’ awake us–’Tis a symbol and a token–
IV.       Of what in other worlds shall be–and given
            In beauty by our God, to those alone
          Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
            Drawn by their heart’s passion, and that tone,
          That high tone of the spirit which hath striven
            Though not with Faith–with godliness–whose throne
          With desperate energy ‘t hath beaten down;
            Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
 

by Eleanor H. Porter

A JOB FOR PETE–AND FOR BERTRAM
The early days in December were busy ones,
certainly, in the little house on Corey Hill.  Marie
was to be married the twelfth.  It was to be a home
wedding, and a very simple one–according to
Billy, and according to what Marie had said it
was to be.  Billy still serenely spoke of it as a
“simple affair,” but Marie was beginning to be
fearful.  As the days passed, bringing with them
more and more frequent evidences either tangible
or intangible of orders to stationers, caterers,
and florists, her fears found voice in a protest.

“But Billy, it was to be a _simple_ wedding,”
she cried.

“And so it is.”

“But what is this I hear about a breakfast?”

Billy’s chin assumed its most stubborn squareness.

“I don’t know, I’m sure, what you did hear,”
she retorted calmly.

“Billy!”

Billy laughed.  The chin was just as stubborn,
but the smiling lips above it graced it with an
air of charming concession.

“There, there, dear,” coaxed the mistress of
Hillside, “don’t fret.  Besides, I’m sure I should
think you, of all people, would want your guests
_fed!_”

“But this is so elaborate, from what I hear.”

“Nonsense!  Not a bit of it.”

“Rosa says there’ll be salads and cakes and
ices–and I don’t know what all.”

Billy looked concerned.

“Well, of course, Marie, if you’d _rather_ have
oatmeal and doughnuts,” she began with kind
solicitude; but she got no farther.

“Billy!” besought the bride elect.  “Won’t
you be serious?  And there’s the cake in wedding
boxes, too.”

“I know, but boxes are so much easier and
cleaner than–just fingers,” apologized an anxiously
serious voice.

Marie answered with an indignant, grieved
glance and hurried on.

“And the flowers–roses, dozens of them,
in December!  Billy, I can’t let you do all this
for me.”

“Nonsense, dear!” laughed Billy.  “Why, I
love to do it.  Besides, when you’re gone, just
think how lonesome I’ll be!  I shall have to adopt
somebody else then–now that Mary Jane has
proved to be nothing but a disappointing man
instead of a nice little girl like you,” she finished
whimsically.

Marie did not smile.  The frown still lay
between her delicate brows.

“And for my trousseau–there were so many
things that you simply would buy!”

“I didn’t get one of the egg-beaters,” Billy
reminded her anxiously.

Marie smiled now, but she shook her head, too.

“Billy, I cannot have you do all this for me.”

“Why not?”

At the unexpectedly direct question, Marie
fell back a little.

“Why, because I–I can’t,” she stammered.
“I can’t get them for myself, and–and–”

“Don’t you love me?”

A pink flush stole to Marie’s face.

“Indeed I do, dearly.”

“Don’t I love you?”

The flush deepened.

“I–I hope so.”

“Then why won’t you let me do what I want
to, and be happy in it?  Money, just money,
isn’t any good unless you can exchange it for
something you want.  And just now I want pink roses
and ice cream and lace flounces for you.  Marie,”
–Billy’s voice trembled a little–“I never had a
sister till I had you, and I have had such a good
time buying things that I thought you wanted!
But, of course, if you don’t want them–”  The
words ended in a choking sob, and down went
Billy’s head into her folded arms on the desk
before her.

Marie sprang to her feet and cuddled the bowed
head in a loving embrace.

“But I do want them, dear; I want them all–
every single one,” she urged.  “Now promise me
–promise me that you’ll do them all, just as
you’d planned!  You will, won’t you?”

There was the briefest of hesitations, then came
the muffled reply:

“Yes–if you really want them.”

“I do, dear–indeed I do.  I love pretty
weddings, and I–I always hoped that I could
have one–if I ever married.  So you must
know, dear, how I really do want all those things,”
declared Marie, fervently.  “And now I must go.
I promised to meet Cyril at Park Street at three
o’clock.”  And she hurried from the room–and
not until she was half-way to her destination did
it suddenly occur to her that she had been urging,
actually urging Miss Billy Neilson to buy for
her pink roses, ice cream, and lace flounces.

Her cheeks burned with shame then.  But
almost at once she smiled.

“Now wasn’t that just like Billy?” she was
saying to herself, with a tender glow in her eyes.
It was early in December that Pete came one
day with a package for Marie from Cyril.  Marie
was not at home, and Billy herself went downstairs
to take the package from the old man’s
hands.

“Mr. Cyril said to give it to Miss Hawthorn,”
stammered the old servant, his face lighting up
as Billy entered the room; “but I’m sure he
wouldn’t mind _your_ taking it.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to take it, Pete, unless
you want to carry it back with you,” she smiled.
“I’ll see that Miss Hawthorn has it the very first
moment she comes in.”

“Thank you, Miss.  It does my old eyes good
to see your bright face.”  He hesitated, then
turned slowly.  “Good day, Miss Billy.”

Billy laid the package on the table.  Her eyes
were thoughtful as she looked after the old man,
who was now almost to the door.  Something
in his bowed form appealed to her strangely.  She
took a quick step toward him.

“You’ll miss Mr. Cyril, Pete,” she said pleasantly.

The old man stopped at once and turned.  He
lifted his head a little proudly.

“Yes, Miss.  I–I was there when he was
born.  Mr. Cyril’s a fine man.”

“Indeed he is.  Perhaps it’s your good care
that’s helped, some–to make him so,” smiled
the girl, vaguely wishing that she could say
something that would drive the wistful look from the
dim old eyes before her.

For a moment Billy thought she had succeeded.
The old servant drew himself stiffly erect.  In
his eyes shone the loyal pride of more than fifty
years’ honest service.  Almost at once, however,
the pride died away, and the wistfulness returned.

“Thank ye, Miss; but I don’t lay no claim to
that, of course,” he said.  “Mr. Cyril’s a fine
man, and we shall miss him; but–I cal’late
changes must come–to all of us.”

Billy’s brown eyes grew a little misty.

“I suppose they must,” she admitted.

The old man hesitated; then, as if impelled
by some hidden force, he plunged on:

“Yes; and they’ll be comin’ to you one of
these days, Miss, and that’s what I was wantin’
to speak to ye about.  I understand, of course,
that when you get there you’ll be wantin’ younger
blood to serve ye.  My feet ain’t so spry as they
once was, and my old hands blunder sometimes,
in spite of what my head bids ‘em do.  So I wanted
to tell ye–that of course I shouldn’t expect to
stay.  I’d go.”

As he said the words, Pete stood with head and
shoulders erect, his eyes looking straight forward
but not at Billy.

“Don’t you _want_ to stay?” The girlish voice
was a little reproachful.

Pete’s head drooped.

“Not if–I’m not wanted,” came the husky
reply.

With an impulsive movement Billy came
straight to the old man’s side and held out her
hand.

“Pete!”

Amazement, incredulity, and a look that was
almost terror crossed the old man’s face; then a
flood of dull red blotted them all out and left only
worshipful rapture.  With a choking cry he took
the slim little hand in both his rough and twisted
ones much as if he were possessing himself of
a treasured bit of eggshell china.

“Miss Billy!”

“Pete, there aren’t a pair of feet in Boston,
nor a pair of hands, either, that I’d rather have
serve me than yours, no matter if they stumble
and blunder all day!  I shall love stumbles and
blunders–if you make them.  Now run home,
and don’t ever let me hear another syllable about
your leaving!”

They were not the words Billy had intended
to say.  She had meant to speak of his long,
faithful service, and of how much they appreciated
it; but, to her surprise, Billy found her
own eyes wet and her own voice trembling, and
the words that she would have said she found
fast shut in her throat.  So there was nothing
to do but to stammer out something–anything,
that would help to keep her from yielding to
that absurd and awful desire to fall on the old
servant’s neck and cry.

“Not another syllable!” she repeated sternly.

“Miss Billy!” choked Pete again.  Then he
turned and fled with anything but his usual
dignity.

Bertram called that evening.  When Billy
came to him in the living-room, her slender self
was almost hidden behind the swirls of damask
linen in her arms.

Bertram’s eyes grew mutinous.

“Do you expect me to hug all that?” he demanded.

Billy flashed him a mischievous glance.

“Of course not!  You don’t _have_ to hug
anything, you know.”

For answer he impetuously swept the offending
linen into the nearest chair and drew the girl
into his arms.

“Oh!  And see how you’ve crushed poor Marie’s
table-cloth!” she cried, with reproachful eyes.

Bertram sniffed imperturbably.

“I’m not sure but I’d like to crush Marie,”
he alleged.

“Bertram!”

“I can’t help it.  See here, Billy.”  He loosened
his clasp and held the girl off at arm’s length,
regarding her with stormy eyes.  “It’s Marie,
Marie, Marie–always.  If I telephone in the
morning, you’ve gone shopping with Marie.
If I want you in the afternoon for something,
you’re at the dressmaker’s with Marie.  If I call
in the evening–”

“I’m here,” interrupted Billy, with decision.

“Oh, yes, you’re here,” admitted Bertram,
aggrievedly, “and so are dozens of napkins,
miles of table-cloths, and yards upon yards of
lace and flummydiddles you call `doilies.’  They
all belong to Marie, and they fill your arms and
your thoughts full, until there isn’t an inch of
room for me.  Billy, when is this thing going to
end?”

Billy laughed softly.  Her eyes danced.

“The twelfth;–that is, there’ll be a–pause,
then.”

“Well, I’m thankful if–eh?” broke off the
man, with a sudden change of manner.  “What
do you mean by `a pause’?”

Billy cast down her eyes demurely.

“Well, of course _this_ ends the twelfth with
Marie’s wedding; but I’ve sort of regarded it as
an–understudy for one that’s coming next
October, you see.”

“Billy, you darling!” breathed a supremely
happy voice in a shell-like ear–Billy was not
at arm’s length now.

Billy smiled, but she drew away with gentle
firmness.

“And now I must go back to my sewing,”
she said.

Bertram’s arms did not loosen.  His eyes had
grown mutinous again.

“That is,” she amended, “I must be practising
my part of–the understudy, you know.”

“You darling!” breathed Bertram again; this
time, however, he let her go.

“But, honestly, is it all necessary?” he sighed
despairingly, as she seated herself and gathered
the table-cloth into her lap.  “Do you have to do
so much of it all?”

“I do,” smiled Billy, “unless you want your
brother to run the risk of leading his bride to
the altar and finding her robed in a kitchen
apron with an egg-beater in her hand for a
bouquet.”

Bertram laughed.

“Is it so bad as that?”

“No, of course not–quite.  But never have
I seen a bride so utterly oblivious to clothes as
Marie was till one day in despair I told her that
Cyril never could bear a dowdy woman.”

“As if Cyril, in the old days, ever could bear
any sort of woman!” scoffed Bertram, merrily.

“I know; but I didn’t mention that part,”
smiled Billy.  “I just singled out the dowdy
one.”

“Did it work?”

Billy made a gesture of despair.

“Did it work!  It worked too well.  Marie gave
me one horrified look, then at once and immediately
she became possessed with the idea that she
_was_ a dowdy woman.  And from that day to
this she has pursued every lurking wrinkle and
every fold awry, until her dressmaker’s life isn’t
worth the living; and I’m beginning to think
mine isn’t, either, for I have to assure her at
least four times every day now that she is _not_
a dowdy woman.”

“You poor dear,” laughed Bertram.  “No
wonder you don’t have time to give to me!”

A peculiar expression crossed Billy’s face.

“Oh, but I’m not the _only_ one who, at times,
is otherwise engaged, sir,” she reminded him.

“What do you mean?”

“There was yesterday, and last Monday, and
last week Wednesday, and–”

“Oh, but you _let_ me off, then,” argued
Bertram, anxiously.  “And you said–”

“That I didn’t wish to interfere with your
work–which was quite true,” interrupted Billy
in her turn, smoothly.  “By the way,”–Billy
was examining her stitches very closely now
–“how is Miss Winthrop’s portrait coming
on?”

“Splendidly!–that is, it _was_, until she began
to put off the sittings for her pink teas and
folderols.  She’s going to Washington next week, too,
to be gone nearly a fortnight,” finished Bertram, gloomily.

“Aren’t you putting more work than usual
into this one–and more sittings?”

“Well, yes,” laughed Bertram, a little shortly.
“You see, she’s changed the pose twice already.”

“Changed it!”

“Yes.  Wasn’t satisfied.  Fancied she wanted
it different.”

“But can’t you–don’t you have something to
say about it?”

“Oh, yes, of course; and she claims she’ll
yield to my judgment, anyhow.  But what’s the
use?  She’s been a spoiled darling all her life, and
in the habit of having her own way about everything.
Naturally, under those circumstances,
I can’t expect to get a satisfactory portrait,
if she’s out of tune with the pose.  Besides, I will
own, so far her suggestions have made for
improvement–probably because she’s been happy
in making them, so her expression has been good.”

Billy wet her lips.

“I saw her the other night,” she said lightly.
(If the lightness was a little artificial Bertram did
not seem to notice it.)  “She is certainly–very
beautiful.”

“Yes.”  Bertram got to his feet and began to
walk up and down the little room.  His eyes were
alight.  On his face the “painting look” was king.
“It’s going to mean a lot to me–this picture,
Billy.  In the first place I’m just at the point in
my career where a big success would mean a lot
–and where a big failure would mean more.
And this portrait is bound to be one or the other
from the very nature of the thing.”

“I-is it?” Billy’s voice was a little faint.

“Yes.  First, because of who the sitter is, and
secondly because of what she is.  She is, of course,
the most famous subject I’ve had, and half the
artistic world knows by this time that Marguerite
Winthrop is being done by Henshaw.  You can
see what it’ll be–if I fail.”

“But you won’t fail, Bertram!”

The artist lifted his chin and threw back his
shoulders.

“No, of course not; but–”  He hesitated,
frowned, and dropped himself into a chair.  His
eyes studied the fire moodily.  “You see,” he
resumed, after a moment, “there’s a peculiar,
elusive something about her expression–”
(Billy stirred restlessly and gave her thread so
savage a jerk that it broke)“–a something
that isn’t easily caught by the brush.  Anderson
and Fullam–big fellows, both of them–didn’t
catch it.  At least, I’ve understood that neither
her family nor her friends are satisfied with _their_
portraits.  And to succeed where Anderson and
Fullam failed–Jove!  Billy, a chance like that
doesn’t come to a fellow twice in a lifetime!”
Bertram was out of his chair, again, tramping
up and down the little room.

Billy tossed her work aside and sprang to her
feet.  Her eyes, too, were alight, now.

“But you aren’t going to fail, dear,” she cried,
holding out both her hands.  “You’re going to
succeed!”

Bertram caught the hands and kissed first one
then the other of their soft little palms.

“Of course I am,” he agreed passionately,
leading her to the sofa, and seating himself at her
side.

“Yes, but you must really _feel_ it,” she urged;
“feel the `_sure_’ in yourself.  You have to!–to
doing things.  That’s what I told Mary Jane yesterday,
when he was running on about what _he_
wanted to do–in his singing, you know.”

Bertram stiffened a little.  A quick frown came
to his face.

“Mary Jane, indeed!  Of all the absurd names
to give a full-grown, six-foot man!  Billy, do, for
pity’s sake, call him by his name–if he’s got
one.”

Billy broke into a rippling laugh.

“I wish I could, dear,” she sighed ingenuously.

“Honestly, it bothers me because I _can’t_ think
of him as anything but `Mary Jane.’  It seems
so silly!”

“It certainly does–when one remembers
his beard.”

“Oh, he’s shaved that off now.  He looks
rather better, too.”

Bertram turned a little sharply.

“Do you see the fellow–often?”

Billy laughed merrily.

“No.  He’s about as disgruntled as you are
over the way the wedding monopolizes everything.
He’s been up once or twice to see Aunt Hannah
and to get acquainted, as he expresses it, and once
he brought up some music and we sang; but he
declares the wedding hasn’t given him half a show.”

“Indeed!  Well, that’s a pity, I’m sure,”
rejoined Bertram, icily.

Billy turned in slight surprise.

“Why, Bertram, don’t you like Mary Jane?”

“Billy, for heaven’s sake!  _Hasn’t_ he got any
name but that?”

Billy clapped her hands together suddenly.

“There, that makes me think.  He told Aunt
Hannah and me to guess what his name was, and
we never hit it once.  What do you think it is?
The initials are M. J.”

“I couldn’t say, I’m sure.  What is it?”

“Oh, he didn’t tell us.  You see he left us to
guess it.”

“Did he?”

“Yes,” mused Billy, abstractedly, her eyes on
the dancing fire.  The next minute she stirred and
settled herself more comfortably in the curve
of her lover’s arm.  “But there! who cares
what his name is?  I’m sure I don’t.”

“Nor I,” echoed Bertram in a voice that he
tried to make not too fervent.  He had not
forgotten Billy’s surprised:  “Why, Bertram, don’t
you like Mary Jane?” and he did not like to call
forth a repetition of it.  Abruptly, therefore, he
changed the subject.  “By the way, what did
you do to Pete to-day?” he asked laughingly.
“He came home in a seventh heaven of happiness
babbling of what an angel straight from the sky
Miss Billy was.  Naturally I agreed with him
on that point.  But what did you do to him?”

Billy smiled.

“Nothing–only engaged him for our butler
–for life.”

“Oh, I see.  That was dear of you, Billy.”

“As if I’d do anything else!  And now for
Dong Ling, I suppose, some day.”

Bertram chuckled.

“Well, maybe I can help you there,” he hinted.
“You see, his Celestial Majesty came to me
himself the other day, and said, after sundry and
various preliminaries, that he should be `velly
much glad’ when the `Little Missee’ came to
live with me, for then he could go back to China
with a heart at rest, as he had money `velly
much plenty’ and didn’t wish to be `Melican
man’ any longer.”

“Dear me,” smiled Billy, “what a happy
state of affairs–for him.  But for you–do you
realize, young man, what that means for you?
A new wife and a new cook all at once?  And you
know I’m not Marie!”

“Ho! I’m not worrying,” retorted Bertram
with a contented smile; “besides, as perhaps
you noticed, it wasn’t Marie that I asked–to
marry me!”

by Edgar Allan Poe
  Once it smiled a silent dell
  Where the people did not dwell;
  They had gone unto the wars,
  Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
  Nightly, from their azure towers,
  To keep watch above the flowers,
  In the midst of which all day
  The red sun-light lazily lay,
  Now each visitor shall confess
  The sad valley’s restlessness.
  Nothing there is motionless–
  Nothing save the airs that brood
  Over the magic solitude.
  Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
  That palpitate like the chill seas
  Around the misty Hebrides!
  Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
  That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
  Unceasingly, from morn till even,
  Over the violets there that lie
  In myriad types of the human eye–
  Over the lilies that wave
  And weep above a nameless grave!
  They wave:–from out their fragrant tops
  Eternal dews come down in drops.
  They weep:–from off their delicate stems
  Perennial tears descend in gems.

by Edgar Allan Poe
  Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
    The angels, whispering to one another,
  Can find, among their burning terms of love,
    None so devotional as that of “Mother,”
  Therefore by that dear name I long have called you–
    You who are more than mother unto me,
  And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you,
    In setting my Virginia’s spirit free.
  My mother–my own mother, who died early,
    Was but the mother of myself; but you
  Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
    And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
  By that infinity with which my wife
    Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.