The Harvest of Years | Page 8

wealthy people do.
In accordance with these last wishes, Louis was placed under the care
of a worthy man, who was principal of a seminary a little distance from
the city where their home was. Clara desired him to come to us about
the twentieth of August and stay two weeks, and also urged me to go to
her home with her and meet him, then returning together.
I hardly wanted to do so, but her sweet urgency persuaded me, and I
consented, reflecting mournfully over those shabby ribbons and that
lemon-colored bow. If there is anything like help in the world that I
receive most gratefully, it is the prompt recognition of a need, and
unobtrusive aid for it. A short time before the day appointed for us to
go to the city, our Clara came down stairs dressed in a beautiful dark
shade of blue Foulard silk, with a lace ruff about her throat, fastened
with a lemon-colored bow.
The blood rushed with a full tide to my face when my eyes fell upon
her as she entered. Simple, I presume, to those accustomed to elegant

costume would her attire have seemed, but to me, as yet uninitiated in
the mysteries of society, dress, etc., she was the perfection of loveliness,
and the impression made upon me was an indelible one; I never saw
anything half so lovely and perfect as she at that moment appeared to
me.
It was an unusual thing too for her to be dressed so nicely for an
afternoon at home. She had, I knew, many beautiful dresses, and had
told me sometimes of the elaborate toilets of the city, but had
heretofore donned as an afternoon dress the gray mohair she wore when
she came, and a light blue scarf over her shoulders was the only color
she wore about her. The weather was warm but the heat was never
oppressive to her--her blood, she said, had never felt as it were really
warm since the night her husband died. On this particular afternoon, we
were talking principally of Hal, and my eyes unconsciously riveted
their gaze on the folds of her dress hanging so gracefully about her, and
trailing softly on the carpet if moved.
I wondered too a little at it, for I noticed it to be quite long in front as
well as behind. The afternoon was far spent, and it was nearly time for
Ben and father to come in to supper. Before she made any allusion to
her extra toilette, extra for our little home, and nodding at me as I
raised my eyes from the soft blue folds to meet the light of the blue
eyes above them, she said:
"How does my dress please Mademoiselle Emily?"
"Oh!" I replied, "I never saw so beautiful a dress." She smiled one of
her bright quick smiles as if some fancy struck her, and said, laying her
hand over the bow at her heart,
"And this too?"
"Both are beautiful in my eyes," I said, "and so suited to you Clara."
After supper we were going to take a walk, and Clara went to her room,
doffed the blue Foulard and came down in the grey mohair. We had a
beautiful walk out from under the shade of the o'erarching chestnut

trees before our door, along the grassy highway leading to the upper
meadow, over the smooth newly-cut field on to the edge of the birch
woods beyond. There we rested quiet, coming back when the moon
rose over the hills and the stars hung out like lanterns on our track.
We talked. Clara had her seasons of soul-talk as she called it, and that
night she read me a full page of her inner self the purport of which I
shall never forget. The more she revealed to me of herself the more I
loved her, and her words suggested thoughts that filled my
soul--thoughts which, in depths within myself I had never dreamed of,
found and swept a string that ere long broke its sweet harmonies on my
spirit. I seemed, all at once, to develop in spiritual stature and to have
become complex to myself.
When we said "good night" to the folks below and went up stairs
together, Clara caught my hand and said,
"Come, mademoiselle, come to my room, please," and of course I went,
making a mock courtesy as if I were a queen, and she my maid. She
unpinned my linen collar and unhooked my dress, while I sat wonder
struck, saying nothing until I felt the fleecy blue silk being thrown over
my shoulders, when I essayed to articulate something. But when my
head emerged from the dress, she playfully covered my mouth with her
hand, and proceeded to fasten the dress