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Show THE JUDGMENT LILIES. They have not been watered these ten years, and yet they bloomed on, the imperishable lilies! Jeanette knelt and gazed at them, as a woman gazes at a I child she has parted from and sees j only once in a sad while. The dew fell, wringing the fragrance from their deep hearts. A cobweb stretched from one blossom to another with a trail of tears across the distance. The perfume peopled peo-pled the night with pleading faces. She lifted hf-r eves to the white wings of her cap, then she looked over-her over-her shoulder to her wooden shoes and, clasping her gnarled hands fiercely, tried to assure herself that she was neither masking nor dreaming. It was Jeanne in the flesh Jeanne farie Marteau, one-time wife of Pierre Mar-teau, Mar-teau, netmaker. Suddenly she felt there was some one on the steps. She looked. She could not mistake th figure fig-ure there. It was Pierre come over the hills, as she had come, to look at the house which they had left ten years ago to travel separate ways. A suspicion, suspi-cion, scorn and then the long, long silence! si-lence! He was ten years older in his wan look. Over his once rosy face a ! shadow, us black as a crow's wing, hung. Moth and rust had not respected respect-ed him in his grief. Jeanne saw it with sad eyes. With a pitiful care, she had kept herself her-self as fresh as a rose, but tonight her hair was seen to be silvering and she bent her face wearily over the lilies, caressing herself with quivering fingers. fin-gers. The old love was waking for Pierre. In her heart she fe It it fluttering flut-tering for speech and song. . When she could bear it no longer she crossed the garden to touch his sleeve. He was not there. It was his wraith summoned by the lilies. A man went by, one among many in the dusk, for he stopped by the garden gate to smell the lilies, and Jeanne had never known a man to smell a flower save Pierre. She scoffed to herself for thinking the football was like his. The lilies were like living souls in the stillness. "We go on blooming whatever comes," they said to her. "We do not toil or spin. We cannot set the world aright. The world rolls on, in the providence prov-idence of God, but we wear the Utile garment of silver and snow which He gave us, and we spend the passion of perfume in our hearts for His sake. That is all!" "That is much," said Jeanne, trembling. trem-bling. A sweet dreaminess fell upon her. She fancied herself in church. It was long since she had knelt in that little stall. The communion cloth was spread. She heard the delicate music of the children's voices; she saw the sunlight choosing the cure's white head to shine on. His blessing fell upon her in the crowd, while the candles glowed in the silver sticks on the altar, and the incense dimmed the morning lights. The sad past, the sadder present, pres-ent, took on a desolate vividness in this holy atmosphere. With her heart in her throat she rose from the grass and ran across the street to the cure's door. "Yes, M'sieur le Cure will soon be here; yes, a gentleman waits to see him," said the placid housekeeper, and she led Jeanne into the parlor. The vision which the lilies had wrought had come before her Pierre! She gazed, unabashed. Pierre glanced at her. Her blue eyes were filled with a silver light which blinded him. The cure came at last. It was ten years since he had seen these two. Either he did not know, them or he feigned forgetfulness. "As you came first, I will hear you first, my good man," he said to Pierre. She saw the wraith arise. "I have been parted with my wjfe these ten years, mon pere. I want to make peace with her." "And I" Jeanne cried, "I want to make my peace with my husband." They fell on their knees and the cure blessed them. II. Jeanne was many years younger now, as she sat at her spinning, her litlte boy lay at her feet, watching the little boy lay at her feet, watching the the lattice. Jeanne herself was look- , ing out over the meadow. In the blue distance she saw the haymaker spring from his load and kneel for a moment at the wayside cross. "Your father is coming home," she. murmured to the child, and he left her and toddled down the road, falling and getting to his feet and falling again, until Pierre snatched him up, white with dust. "What did papa bring you?" asked Jeanne, when Pierre flung him into her arms. "A boat!" "What did he bring mamma?" said Pierre. "Himself!" whispered Jeanne, all softness. "No," said Pierre; but he said no more as he went off to unload the hay. Jeanne came to the door when she had tucked lltle Jacques In bed. The stars were scattered like little clusters of marguerites over the sky. She saw the moon strike Pierre's huge fork, with a bunch of hay In its teeth. She heard the bleating of lambs in the beauties of a night at home in Brit-tainy. Brit-tainy. Soon Pierre came back to her singing. sing-ing. "What did you bring me, Pierre?" "Myself!" "Yes; but Pierre ?" '"Well, then, news a sweet piece of news. You remember" his deep voice changed as if for a softer phrase in music "that I told you it was the fragrance of the lilies in our old garden gar-den that sent me to the cure that night?" "And We thought the lilies bloomed on with only heaven to water them?" "Yes." "Today the housekeeper told me that all those long years the cure went out every night after dark to water them." Jeanne caught her breath, then slowly, reverently, made the sign of the cross. "I Temember that the cure once told me, when I was a little child, that God often worked a miracle through the fragrance of a flower. I remember that I dreamed of it that night. Pierre" Jeanne looked out over the hills "I wonder if he is asleep yet? Let us say a prayer for him." She knelt and he followed. They lifted their pure faces to the skies. "May the cure's people love him better," murmured the sweet, sweet voice of Jeanne, "may his birds sing sweeter, may his big dog guard his sleep tonight and always may Pierre and Jeanne and little Jacques be as lilies before the Tabernacle for him, living for him, dying for him" The voice of the man took up the prayer "And may Pierre and Jeanne and little Jacques know the cure in heaven!" The Monitor, July 21. |