The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1882-12-15
CARRADINE'S LOVE.

Carradinc sat alone at his easel, paint.
ing, and as he painted he thought.
Eight years before, when he was poor
and struggling boy, just entering on
that race which must be run by every
aspirant TO art and its honors, ther
happened TO him something whicl
neither time nor Toll had ever been able
to eflacc frem his memory. AS he was
passing along the streets wreath of
fragrant roses suddenly fell on his
head, and, looking up in wonder, he
behcld, reaching out from the embroid-
cred drapcries of an overhanging wind
ow, a child, with fairy-like proportions,
with great, dark eyes, and long, curl
ing black locks, who stood smiling and
throwing him kisses from her curved
lips colored like pomegranate. While
she still gazed nurse had come for
ward and drawn the child away; the
curtains were closed, and he saw the
little creature no more.
Such wae the vision that the artist
had carried so long in his memory; in
his me mory only, and he had no second
glimpse of the child. That very day
an accident occurred which kept him
prisoner in his room for some weeks
and when next he went ont the house
was empty and placard with great
fiaring letters announcing it for sale
stared him in the face, from the same
window in which the little white-robed
elf had stood waving her hand and
smiling TO him. In course of time
other faces appeared there. Bat they
were strange faces, and among them
was never the one for which he look
ed.
Now, as Carradine sat painting alone,
he thought of all this; of the struggle
that had ended at length in success; OF
his hard unfriended boyhood, and of
the beautiful child with her fragrant
rosecrown, which had seemed almost
Ike IA prophecy. That rose-wreath,
dry and withered now, was all that
was left to him of the fair vision, but
in the morning, when turning over all
old portfolio, he had come upon il by
chance, it spoke to him of that by-gone
day Just as eloquently as when its
blossoms were fresh and full.
"Eight years ago." he said, thought
fully, letting the shriveled circlet slip
through his fingers, slowly. "She
must be nearly sixteen now-if she
lives. If? No, do not doubt her liv-
ing presence somewhere. | wonder
where she is now, and what she is like
at sixteen?
With that, he placed the wreath be.
side his easel, and began to paint. The
face, as it grew on his canvass, present
ell young girl in the dewy morning
blush OF first youth, with shadows in
the great dark eyes and half slnilt
about the bright curved lips, like an
embodied summer sun shower. 1t was
thus that the artist pictured his ideal
of the child woman, whose infantile
look and smile for eight long years
had been his own dream of love.
Carrrdine mad not an easy life. An
orphan from his earliest years, poor
and unfriended, he had striven hard
for the means TO crafty that inherent
idolatry for art winch was always
clamoring to find expression in form
and coloring. He had fought and he
had won; but now, at twenty-six, lac
stood in the place which he had gained
for himself almost ss much alone at
the very heart as he had been eight
years before, when the child's gift
came to him as prophecy.
1t was not that he was friendless.
There were men who liked and sought
him, women who would have gladly
taught him TO forget his loneliness In
their affection. But though his nature
responded readily to any kindness,
there was one chord, deeper than all,
that remained untouched; and, from
the sweetest glances. his thoughts went
back TO the unknown child that had
smiled down on him so long ago.
The ideal head became his greal
source of enjoyment, and dreamy
softness shaded his dark gray eyes, ai
line by line and tint by tint took hin
back into that past, which, all lifelesi
as ii was, seemed to him, in those
moments, mere real than the bus,
present. Yet now, in reviewing tina
one bright vision of his memory, il wa
not SO much the lovely child that h,
saw, in fancy, as the beautiful -gir
whose face, with fullest depth and sweet
ness, looked out at him from his owl
canvass.
Instinctively, he hardly knew why
he disliked TO work on this picturcfi
any other presence, and he devoted 4
IL only his hours of solitude. SO
happened that il was nearly finished
when, by some chance, a friend dis
covered him bending over IL too absorb
ed TO notice any approach. As the doc
opened, Carradine rose hastily, turning
his easel to the wall, 90 as TO concea
the face upon it. This litile.stralagem