The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1886-04-24

A lifetime of anguish may be compressed
into twenty-four hours Thus the young
wife occasioned more anxiety to those about
her than her dead in the days following
that awful Easter morning. She demanded
of the kind doctor, with haggard eyes, if
the young man above stairs had been her
own husband, and he endeayored to soothe
without understanding her. She besought
the inanimate clay to forgive her for sleep
ing. Il did not know we should have only
few moments more together before our
life would end" she moaned. Then she
demanded quickly of her companions, the
earth, the sky: ''Where has he gone
How shall I ever find him again ?"
Words Of consolation and resignation fell
on deaf ears. The landlady and thewomen
wept in helpless sympathy, but May shed
no tears. She sat beside her dead with
clasped hands, speechless, her face of the
same blue pallor as the marble face on the
pillow.
The landlady detained the doctor out
side the door.
sShe has not slept or tasted food for
twenty-four hours" she whispered. "Her
brain will turn. The shock vas too great
for her. and she has the look of mad
woman already"
The doctor held a letter. An idea came
to him. The letter had just arrived by the
post, and could not concern the recent be-
reavement. He entered the chamber of
death, approached May and presented the
letter, saying, in natural tones
''This letter has just come. You will be
kind enough to open it"
Surprised, she raised her head, received
and mechanically tore open the envelope.
An Easter card was disclosed. An up
rooted plant dropped on stone parapet,
with rays of sunshine slanting down in a
golden tide, and in the rays these words
were traced:
II am the Resurrection and the Life"
May read the card and turned it over in
her hand. The doctor paused behind her;
the landlady stood in the doorway Then
a sound became audible in the room, tu-
multuous sobbing, and the widow fell on
her knees, clasping one of the dead hands
covering it with tears and kisses.
~ am the Resurrection and the Life, y
she repeated tremulously. "Oh, beloved,
l shall find you again !"
The Easter card had fallen on the floor.
The doctor raised it and placed it on the
fo}t of the bed.
When the winter of another year brought
its SHOWS and clear, star-lit nights, Agnes
Clement still wrought in her studio, the
glass-eovered piazza. The place was chang
ed. Flowers now bloomed everywhere,
with the difference between the piazza and
the conservatory that the artist had painted
them. Roses swayed lightly on their stalks
in the sketches on the wall; violets and
daisies were scattered in profusion over
boxes and fans; fairies peeped from bios
sons on ornamented cards; portrait heads
smiled from the center of dishes garlanded
in ivy and ferns A glance into the do
main of sister Anne would also have re-
vealed little additional luxuries and COM
forts unattainable with the modest salary
of Humphrey Agnes had learned to love
her task, and dealt tenderly with the flow
ers, hence her success Occasionally her
attention strayed to distant corner, conse-
Grated to Beatrice in Paradise" and
and "Ophelia, and at such moments she
sighed.
Opposite, the superb conservatory still
bloomed in the sunshine, and here appeared
occasionally pale young lady in deep
mourning, whose grave face seemed to have
forgotten how to smile. The artist recog-
nized her as the girl in the pink dress and
jewels, and associated her garb with the
absence of the brilliant young man. That
was all. Between them was gulf, and
thought did not span it. Had Agnes pen
etrated the spacious mansion of her neigh
Dor she would have seen in Mays chamber,
placed where her eyes beheld it as the first
object in awakening, an Easter card, framed
in ebony and veiled with Grape. owe are
all so intertwined that the same wave beats
on every shore.