What a pleasant week that was! Life may be somewhat desert-like, but
there is many a sweet little oasis where we can rest in the shade by the
rippling water, with the flowers and the birds about us.
One afternoon Beth went out for a stroll by herself down toward the
lake, and past the old Mayfair home. The family were still in Europe,
and the place, she heard, was to be sold. The afternoon sunshine was
beating on the closed shutters, the grass was knee-deep on the lawn and
terraces, and the weeds grew tall in the flower-beds. Deserted and
silent! Silent as that past she had buried in her soul. Silent as those
first throbs of her child-heart that she had once fancied meant love.
That evening she and May sat by the window watching the sunset cast its
glories over the lake, a great sheet of flame, softened by a wrapping of
thin purplish cloud, like some lives, struggling, fiery, triumphant,
but half hidden by this hazy veil of mortality.
"Are you going to write another story, Beth?"
"Yes, I thought one out last fall. I shall write it as soon as I am
rested."
"What is it--a love story?"
"Yes, it's natural to me to write of love; and yet--I have never been
seriously in love.
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