Flower of the Dusk | Page 4

your hair, Barbara?" He had asked the question many
times.
"The colour of ripe corn, Daddy. Don't you remember my telling you?"
He leaned forward to stroke the shining braids. "And your eyes?"
"Like the larkspur that grows in the garden."
"I know--your dear mother's eyes." He touched her face gently as he
spoke. "Your skin is so smooth--is it fair?"
"Yes, Daddy."
"I think you must be beautiful; I have asked Miriam so often, but she
will not tell me. She only says you look well enough and something
like your mother. Are you beautiful?"
"Oh, Daddy! Daddy!" laughed Barbara, in confusion. "You mustn't ask
such questions! Didn't you say you had made two songs? What is the
other one?"

Miriam sat in the dining-room, out of sight but within hearing. Having
observed that in her presence they laughed less, she spent her evenings
alone unless they urged her to join them. She had a newspaper more
than a week old, but, as yet, she had not read it. She sat staring into the
shadows, with the light of her one candle flickering upon her face,
nervously moving her work-worn hands.
"The other song," reminded Barbara, gently.
[Sidenote: 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?"
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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----"
[Sidenote: 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,"