The Harvest of Years | Page 9

trunk, and dressed in that beautiful blue dress with that new silk bow. I could not help taking the old one out of the drawer to contrast it with the new, and although it did look soiled and shabby, I thought I was almost wicked to have felt so troubled at my little adornments, and then resolved to keep that little old faded lemon ribbon as long as I should live, and I have it now.
Carefully I unpinned that new bow, laying it, with the first real lace collars I had ever owned, in a mahogany box, as tenderly as though they were pearls, and hung the blue Foulard in my closet between my best much-worn alpaca and my afternoon gingham.
That night I dreamed that when father went to feed the chickens in the barn yard, a beautiful bird with silky wings of blue fluttered down among them to be fed. How impressible my artless brain! As great an event was this to me, as the inauguration of our highest potentate to the people.
Next morning I opened the closet door before dressing, and looked at the new dress. The more I thought about it the more I wondered when or where I should ever wear it, and not until a traveling suit, the fac-simile of Clara's, was dropped upon me did I realize how the blue Foulard was fitted to my shoulders. In her own sweet way she told me, that though we were to remain only a few days at her home in the city, yet her friends would surely call, and I must take the Foulard to wear in the afternoons. Dear little soul, how tender she was of everybody's feelings, and with what true womanly tact she turned, as far as possible, every one into a pleasant path! Quick to notice needs, she always applied her gifts with the greatest grace and tact, and without making any one feel under obligation to her.
The morning of August thirteenth dawned upon us not altogether smiling, since the sky looked as if inclined to weep. We started, however, on our intended journey, and more than once the old stage-driver looked around to catch a glimpse of my darling friend, who was quite a wonderment to the country folk. Inaccurate rumors of Clara and her fortune had been talked about among them--yet none knew just how it all was, except our family, and we would betray no secrets that she wished kept. I hardly recognized myself when at last we arrived at our journey's end, and I was in Clara's home. Never before had I seen myself reflected in a long pier-glass, and never on earth did I seem so homely; my hands were too large and awkward, and I sat so uncomfortably on the luxurious chairs.
Clara noticed my discomfort and kept me changing from one position to another, until I was so vexed with myself I insisted on sitting in a corner and persuaded Clara that my head ached. The compassionate soul believed it and was bathing my temples, when a light step aroused us both, and a moment later she was in the arms of her beloved son, whom she proudly introduced to me.
I was surprised at his appearance--I thought him a boy, and so he was in years, but if Clara had not told me his age, I should have guessed him to be twenty-five. He had large dark eyes, a glorious head, perfect in its shape, an intellectual forehead, and the most finely chiselled mouth, most expressive of all his feelings; his lips parted in such loving admiration of his mother and closed so lovingly upon her own. After a profound bow to myself and a hearty grasp of the hand, he drew her to the crimson cushions of a t��te-��-t��te standing near, and passing his arm around her held her closely to him, as if afraid he would lose her. I envied her, and any heart might well envy the passionate devotion of a son like Louis Robert Desmonde.
I wanted to leave them to themselves, but as I could not do this, I covered my head, which really ached now, with my hands, and tried hard not to listen to their audible conversation, but from that time I appreciated what was meant by the manly love of this son, differing so widely from anything I had ever before known. Like his mother, he had great tact, and suited himself exactly to conditions and persons.
I moved as in a dream. Everything that wealth could lavish on a home was here. I occupied Clara's own room with her, and it seemed at night as if I lay in a fairy chamber; there were silken draperies of delicate blue, a soft velvety carpet whose ground was the same beautiful