Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1890-10-15

simple prayers before the wooden
cross that had hung by the little win
dow at the foot of her bed eyer since
she could remember.
For she disdained his gifts as much
as she disliked the giver.
Said the ancient dame, her mother,
Thou art most undutiful daughter.
He has chosen thee above all the vii
lage maidens for thy pretty face.
Many are the ffocks in the fields of
his father, and the bright gold pieces
in the secret nook of the chimney
piece. Few men would wed thee, for
thou hast no dover. Foolish girl %
Marguerite wept at these reproa CHI
es, but was firm in her rejection of the
despised sutton.
Matters might have been different,
but for the fact that she already had
lover, poor as herself in land and
gold, but rich in manly beauty and
noble nature.
But in the autumn, when the long
rains burst upon the land, with wall
ing of winds and grooming of the
branches, her lover died.
Secretly, the old dame rejoiced.
"Now," she said, "she will marry
JEAN"
And what with the bitter sense of
loss lying heavy upon her soul, and
the continued upbraidings of her
mother, she did consent. and her mar
riage was set for a certain date in
midwinter.
The day before the wedding great
snow fell and spread spotless carpet
over the moor, and clothed the naked
and shlvering branches of the wood
in garments of swansdown, and near
ly buried the cottage in dazzling
drifts.
AT dusk, the leaden clouds parted,
and the night opened its casket of
sparkling stars.
Marguerite, lying in her little bed,
looked out of the curtalnless window
and likened them to thousands of
tall candles faring in the frosty at
mosphere, or beds of lilies, blowing in
dewy gardens.
While these fancies fitted her brain,
she felt wings of wondrous whiteness
and strength unfolding from her
shoulders, and she rose and opened
the window, and foated out over the
snowy sill, and upon and through the
silent night.
She beheld beneath her the white
moor, with no foot print of man, beast
or bird anywhere upon its glittering
surface, and the snowladen branches
Of the wood, and the cottage with the
drifts about the door.
Mounting even higher and higher,
she saw the deserted streets of the
sleeping village, that would waken on
the morrow and deck itself in wreaths
and ribbons to dance at her bridal
and that other village of low, white
mounds in the shadow of the church
tower, the dwellers in which awakened
neither to festival nor funeral, and
where her father and her lover mould
cred back to dust.
Up and up she went. and now she
saw the dark, heaving breast of the
ocean beyond the white line of the
snow covered land, and then the
shadowy scene became blurred and
indistinct, and faded entirely away,
and she found herself among the
stars.
Not the bright worlds revolving in
their orbits she had been taught to
believe them, but hosts of shining
angels, glorious in garments of snow
and of silver, with waving wings that
glittered, and flashed, and scintilated
with thousand hues, and solved the
mystery of the rainbow to Marguerite.
For after great storm of wind and
rain and thunder has swept over the
earth, angels of pity descend to bear
away the spirits of bruised birds and
broken flowers to sing and blossom
anew in Eden, and the changing hues
oftheir plumage as they 60 up to heay-
en- again span the clouds and make
the rainbow.
In voices Of surprising sweetness,
like many harps in tune, they sang
together at the gate of heaven, which
is the sun.
The splendor of the stars upon their
peaceful and beautiful brows were ac-
cording to the purity of their earthly
lives.
Every good deed was an added ray.
The sound of rustling of their wings
was like all joyful things.
Silvery laughter of little children,
ripping Of amber brooks over sands
of gold, the happy mnrmur Of sum
mer woods when little birds build in
the boughs, the splashing of fountains
the falling of crystal rains, the songs
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