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Show r ' By Harriet Prescott Spofford J&ass IT is really inconceivable," said her mother, "that so clever a person as Zoc can be to stupid'" "This is certainly her masterpiece," said her sister Sylvia. "And 1 suppose interference would ruin everything'. It is not a particularly good match. I wish wc were not so fund of Antrobus," with hah" a sigh. JK "Bui wc arc,"vsind Sylvia, as she watched Zoe dancing on t.hc lawn with a stray child It had never occurred to Zyc, just from school, that she was a personage of importance. She knew little about the wealth she had inherited from her uncle Lewis because she had been named for his wife. She had been told that wealth was a responsi- "Wcll she has the makings of a duchess to her." "What arc the makings of a duchess? Her splendid splen-did figure?" "And more than enough of it'" "But it's like the beautiful old statues." "And some might call her hair red," said Mrs. Martha. "I nccr saw red that color! And when it's down she stands on the tips oi it." "With solid feet!" said the nurse, loyal to her own darling "And her eyes arc like stars at twilight; and her nose I wish mine " slipping her finger along her own, "tip-tilted like the petal of a flower." "1 think he can't help being in love with Sylvia. from herself, hardly of every-day people. She made a sketch of them once sketching Sylvia made it 'egilimate to sketch Antrobus; and she thought how beautiful some great Shannon portraits of the two would be. When she came into her money she would have that done if it were enough. If it were enough! The little being had tin idea that by this time I'ncle Lewi-.' bequest was counted in millions.- This condition of uiKon.scious satisfaction endured for a long while. Her mother and Sylvia used to look at her in wonder! Was such stupidity possible? pos-sible? Such innocence? And then, of a sudden, the music censed about the house; there were no more naleh-s of sung Idling from everywhere, no sound of dancing feci, nothing sweeter, the flowers richer, the laughter gayer. But the storm in die heart of Zoc was no less wild. Her Ioe of Sylvia, her love of Antrobus, her hopes, her tears, her self-condemnation for both fears and hopes, made her soul tempestuous. llcr mother had ordered her dress, perfect in a simplicity of tulle and pearls.. But it was late before she could briug herself to put it on. And then the sight of those flashing people in their jewels, their colors, their movement, their smiles, struck her like the phantasmagoria of some strange and foreign parallel. She felt iii a dream, while she danced, danced listlessly, lifelessly. Iicr step-father came and took her out, laughing and making pleasant jests. Once she danced with Antrobus, a dance another an-other claimed and took. And then she saw Antrobus Antro-bus dancing with Sylvia Sylvia in scarlet crepes caught with bunches of lemon-flowers and she slipped away then, threading groups of dancers, stealing from shadow to shadow till she found the staircase of the west wing, escaping so to her own room, tearing off her ttdlc and her pearls, locking her door, and hiding herself even from dear old Mrs. Martha. If only Sylvia had been named for Uncle Lewis' dead wife and Heaven had given her Sylvia's beauty how different the world would be! She heard the guests departing by and by. If she could go tool She knew not where out of life itself, it-self, it may be for what a bitter thing had life become' be-come' Where was that gay young girl of last summer, sum-mer, to whom life was so sweet and the world so beautiful? Lot. lost in outer darkness! This poor wraith was but her shadow. The storm had blown itself mil in the night; the morning made a dazzle of blue sky and sunshine across the wastes of snow that in theic cold whiteness, white-ness, for all the glitter and sparkle, seemed typical of death itself. It curdled her blood; she might not loc life, but death was abhorrent. Well, she must make herself live.. There were other people in the world her mother, her kind stepfather Sylvia would miss her caressing and admiring. Antrobus would Antrobus even remember there had been such a person as Zoe? There wa? no help for it; she must change the poles. This state of mind was worse than foolish. She would find some absorbing occupation and engage herself in what reeded all her thought. There was a shelf of Italian books in the library; slw knew a little of the language now: she would bury herself in the excitements of old Italian history. She had heard Antrobus talking of it lie was writing a play out of some story belonging belong-ing to it. She had wished then that she were not "You look as if you needed a cup of it, laced with' something more licry yet. You have a headachci You disappeared so soon last night." And then Zoc had risen to find a match, had scratched it as sha stood leaning over to light the alcohol-lamp under the urn, had whirled it about in the air to extinguish it, and had tossed it down in a hurry to lower the wick of the lamp that was burning blue, Antrobus having walked to the window. And suddenly sha was conscious of a swift and fervid sensation of heat, of an intolerable smell of scorching, of a cloud ofi smoke, and her skirts were blazing up about her. "Oh, Antrobus, help! help me!" she cried. In an instant Antrobus had thrown her to tha floor and seized a rug and rolled her in it, and had Uirown himself beside her, smothering the flames as he could, locating them out furiously, breathlessly. "I am burning to death!" was her first thought, "lie would do this for any one," was her next one. "Oh, I am dying in his arms!" was the last one. And then all was black and blank. And when she knew, anything again the fire was gone, the rug was gone, and Antrobus was holding her as if life aad soul depended on his grasp, and whispering: "Oh, my precious love, my precious little love! You arc safe; oh. thank God! If you had died . Great God, I can't think of it! The terrible momcnti How could I, how could I have lived!" She heard him. but she lay still, just for the bliss of hearing. And then she felt his heart beating in great shocks. "I I didn't know." she whispered. "And I let that miserable money stand between us! Why did you never help me? Little love, why did you hide your heart why were you so cold " "I was warm enouglf just now," she answered with a gleam of returning mischief. And then she moved and threw her arms about his shoulders, and clung to him a moment, hiding her face. "The lire! the fire!" she shuddered. "And you saved me!" He grew cold with the remembrance. Although but a moment or two ago, it already seemed part of another life, the old life left behind them. "I shall never know such terror again 1" he exclaimed. "That awful pillar of flame " "I am glad; I am glad it came!" she said. "It burned away all trouble! I have won you as Sie gfried von Brunhildc, through a will of fire I" She slipped from his arms, wrapping about her the cloak, and fkd from the room, leaving Antrobus to ring for the' butler, account for the affair, and have some soothing application for his hands. But as she ran upstairs she could hardly believe her senses; she was not sure she had not been dreaming. ; ! vj i SOMETIMES ME CAME AND WALKED BESIDE HER IN THE GARDEN. "' . ,. ' nr-'r t-. .., ' ' ' 1 SHE HEARD HIM, BUT SHE LAV STILL, JUST FOR THE DLISS OF HEARING. I' bihty, and so she had said she should dnide hers with Sylvia when she wa married; of course she would Lc married sometime; every one was. But not now! Just nov. she was nothing but a bird let loose, A joyous little thing, sometimes she seemed al- mot irrcfpoiisibie, at other tunes she had the wisdom wis-dom of the aces. But she was very young, her lic:.hh was ptrfect. she was beautiful, the world was wonderful, it was good to sleep, it -was good to wake, morning was always a glad surprise, nigh: a sweet solemnity; it was a joy to be alive. Sh: fluttered through house und gardens as if she had wiiiK- everywhere she wc;;t she danced rather than v.-.Tlk'-d. You mie-'.u have fancied her in a perpetual tunishmcnt at finding any world that had school in it really so well tvorlh while. As for study had she not had enough of that already, she a lii'lle dunce? As for thinking why should any one thi::!: v.iio could fee',? Life could not be long cnou',h for problems: its span was jvut to show its loveless; it was all one delightful present. "Oh. hoy .'ood it is just to breathe in this world of v-rM-!" she would say to Sylvia, when perhaps the s '..-y v.r.s boding and the rain falling. 'To-.daj?" said Sylvia, lifting her fine eyebrows. "mow absurd you are, Zoe! One would think there wa-, no trouble on earth!' "I haven't come across it, if there is," said Zoc. "except, of course, in geometry or French verbs.' "You are not af School r.c.v, dcir." "That nukes tl,c world twice delightful!" And t''en, v.:.'.h.jui knowing it, she thought no world could b- :::iythi;.E but delightful in which Mark Antrobus V.-.ci. The mere fact thr.t he was in it made sunshine sun-shine of til sorts of weather. And so you may sec that, although her temperament tempera-ment made her buoyant, Mark Antrobus wa part of the inner reason of this radiant happiness. Antrobus. hoAver, she observed, did not show that Zoc signified especially to him. He had much more to say to Sylvia, lie was a student, with a dream of great poems. It would be natural were he in kvc with Sylvia, who was a beauty. "Do you suppose he ii?" said Zoc to her old nurse. "Is what?" said Mrs. Martha. ivc with Sylvia." vVho?" "Mr. Antrobus." I suppose she is I don't sec how she can help that!" said Zoc. "Silly!" said Mrs. Martha. "I wonder what it feels like to be in love. Were you ever in love, Martha?" "Lor bless the child! There's your ma a-callin' e." "Yes, of course," she reasoned later, Antrobus was under Sylvia's spell. Who wasn't? That was plain common-sense. If he married Sylvia, he would be her brother a downright blessing. Perhaps they would live here, and she would not lose Sylvia, and would have him for all of every day. Who could alc more? As for any spell of her own the pos-Mbility pos-Mbility had not occurred to her; she was simply content to look at Antrobus as a cat might look at a king, as Mrs. Martha said. She thought of his antique perfection of face and form only as the o.pression of a soul so fine. She felt it a rare race that evolved such a being. She was irretrievably in love with him, and without knowing -it. Sometimes he ccme and walked beside her in the garden; but she knew it was only because Sylvia was not there she was not the roe, but she had lived near the rose Sometimes he took from her hand the book she was reading" ami spoke of it a little; but then he was waiting for Sylvi.i to come down. Yet such brief moments were moments of ecstacy that made time speed without thought of past or future. That Antrobus should have hesitated to speak to her of love let it rub e.ff the innocent bloom, could not cross her mind, she did nut know anything about her bloom. That he hesitated on account of her money could not occur to her, either. And' that his conversations with Sylvia might be chiefly about herself would have seemed ridiculous. Of course Antrobus must be in love with perfection, if in love at all. And the name of perfection again was the Sylvia whom she adored! Antrobus often came over from his own small holding? her stepfather having books he consulted, too ponderous to borrow, loo costly to buy. Then, after a morning at which, once in a while, Zoe assisted as-sisted in making alphabetical lists, escaping presently pres-ently like a bird that had been held a moment on the finger, he would perhaps walk with Sylvia in the long pergola, his tall head a little.' bent, all the greenery of the vines opening and closing about them, and seeming to Zoc. as she saw thjm front an upper window, beings of romance quite apart that intimated gayety of heart. Only a pale, listless little person dragged herself about, and seemed not to care whether she lived or died. She did not signify. sig-nify. Why should she go down to dinner, she asked herself, in reply to her mother's urgency. To sec Antrobus walking down the. hall with Sylvia, she in her dark blue gauzes and cut crystals, like a goddess in a cloud? to sec Antrobus bend and, lifting lift-ing her hand, kiss the gardenia she held' And then Sylvia tossed her the gardenia as if it were no other than any common flower. She kept the great sweet blossom till it was tarnished, and then pressed it in her prayer-book. Once she lifted it to her lips and loeik off that kiss hrrsclf. But no,' no, it was not for her! And she took the poor faded flower from between be-tween the haves of the service for the dead where she had put it, and laid it on the burning coals and cried to sec it shrivel. "Faint heart nev.r w.on fair lady," she overheard Sylvia saying to their mother. "By the time Antrobus An-trobus dares speak, another hero will have taken his place." ' Had Sylvia any heart at all?" thought Zoc. "Another "An-other hero! If there were any rnie who could take I lie place of Antrobus in Sylvia's heart she did not deserve him!" , Her mother insisted presently that Zoc should Interest herself in the ball for Sylvia's birthday. She did, she directed the envelopes in her dashing hand. "A ridiculous hand'" she said, "For such a tiny person. Do you think I am a dwarf, mamma?" "My little dear! How absurd!" "T am so undersized.'' "Be-ide Sylvi.i, you mean? Xo, you arc different types. Sylvia is the great lady on the wall of the long ilr.iv, ing-roofl; but you are the dainty maVqnic in the morning-room the one with the Cape jessamine jessa-mine in her hand. They call them ganfenias now." "Yes. He gave one to Sylvia." "Who did?" "Antrobus" "The one I saw her give to you? What became of it? They arc nice among laces for a while." "It faded, 1 suppose. I threw it in the fire. " "You arc a strange girl," said her mother. . The first great) storm of the season came on the, night of the ball- The win. I roared round the gables; one heard the roaring of boughs and the ir .crashing fall, the ladling of slccl, the whistle of gust and eddy, and now and then the lr.mgc silence of the snow tint envelop cd all outside sounds. The disturbance dis-turbance of the storm caused the iuu.mc to seem 'pyrlbt, i vo'j, bv Hzilr ' Brothers, all riChta reserve ruch a dunce. Sylvia had. known what ... was all about. Well, she would know now. She took a big cloak over her arm. for she would have a run on the terrace, where the men were shovelling shov-elling off the snowtand went down to the breakfast-room. breakfast-room. F.very one had gone, she found; for a few of the guests, Antrobus among them, had stayed, over, these by invitation, those through the violence of the storm. The butler and the second man had just left the room when Antrobus came in. "I suppose if one sleeps like the seven sleepers he must be content to drink his coffee cold," he said to Zoe. "I will ring for Colburn. Or, no, indeed." she exclaimed. ex-claimed. "I will light the lamp and in a moment it will be hot again. I would l;ke some hot coSce myself." "He is mine; he is mine!" her heart sang, While another bath and a change of raiment made her feel as if she emerged from a grub to a gorgeous dragonfly. dragon-fly. Yet even in these fleeting moments of ecstacy she was not altogether certain that Antrobus was quite so great and perfect as he had seemed; as though the condescension undid some portion of his perfection, as though it ought to be not herself, but Sylvia, here. And it had been she herself, Zoc, he had loved all the time bow stupid of her not to have seen! She always was a little stupid. But he were not altogether such a pattern of perfection,, how inliinitcly dearer all in a moment he had be-; cornel And it was like a shout of joy that the words tang themselves over and over in her inner con-, scionsness even although she was not quite sure he should find hint waiting (or her: "He is iniet 1 am his!" |