The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1893-08-23


midst Of time so alien and so hard.
There was Magdelene, the modern, in
splendid ballroom, and none to pity
the horror and loneliness of her heart,
or even to divine it. There was the
dawn of the spring day, with Corot's
mystic light stealing through each dim
and tender vista, and all the flush and
poetry of the waking hour. The tears
came TO Mary Stuarts eyes. She al
most thought she could hear bird
song pricking the sweet silence of that
dawn.
How was it she knew her companion
had thoughts like her own? How was
it that little by little the silence which
had begun in sullenness began TO be a
delight? A fuller sense of color and
form seemed to break upon her. She
wondered if the loneliness and dissatis-
faction she had always felt had been
because her life had had so little beau
tiful in it. Every moment she seemed
to understand these pictures better.
She began to notice how marvellous was
colorl How full of wonderful grada-
tioDs! Were shadows like that? Were
they ever so purple? Was light on
plains and deserts white as those pic.
| luIcb SllOWGu buCIu W DtG NGIG
women so beautiful? Was love so
poetical that painters painted it always,
and with such passion? How fast life
seemed to be unfoldiugl
Her startled mind showed her sud-
denly the interior of the Office where
she had sat for three long years, and
she felt again the silence-not a silence
such as Corot had painted, which might
at any moment be broken by the wind
of dawn rushing up through the
meadows, but the silence imposed upon
slaves! She saw the immovable, dull :,
yellow face of the man she worked for
the man who could not differentiate be-
tween the machine and the woman, and
thought of them both as typewriters.
Why, that had not been life at all !
With gesture born of new courage
and new delight, she threw back her
head and looked up at her companion.
She wanted to make sure he was fol-
lowing her thoughts. He looked back
at her without smiling, but with per-
feet comprehension. And from some
where there came a wave of warmth,
delicate and touched with sentent
Joy, and passed over her body, and
seemed some way to bring with it a
perfume and a song, and all the pic
lures swan for a moment in golden
haze fairer than any of the artists had
put on their mountain top.
Youth is an alchemist. He will make
gold for one any n oment, if he is only
given the right materials.
To follow the evolution of soul
who can do that?
One day came when these two people
were saying always: "It is the last
day."
Any one who could have heard these
unspoken words, and the sorrow of
them, would have supposed that on the
morrow creation would be destroyed.
That day whatever they said was
hippant. They did nothing but jest.
"Has any one ever been over there
to the south end of the grounds?"
Mary asked.
Ingersoll shook his head doubtfully.
81 hear they are thinking of sending
for Stanley" he said, "they want to
know if he wouldn't be willing to pen
citrate them"
They got endless amusement from
the people. Mary could tell whenever
she met any one who was on his ''irst
day." They did the Midway Plaisance
that day. The four ends of the earth
seemed to have been swept together
1t swept down little patriotic distinc-
These men from the Soudan, the mighty
women from Dahomey, these dancers
from Asia Minor, these sallow men
orf,, ,aln &c To-
these Eskimo women who held their
babies close in their arms, these
dreamy-eyed Bedouins, these languid
Turks-were they not all the same?
To live, to love, to laugh, to hope, to
weep, to die-what difference? 'Tis
the same from Martinique to Madagas-
+ car! Someway, Mary had never thought
$ of that before. The world was getting
very large to her.
/, And it was the last day.
D That night she stayed on the grounds
instead of leaving at six O'Clock, as she
. had previously done. She wanted to
see the great basin lit by electricity.
Ingersoll invited her to supper, and
they ate together in the Polish restau.
rant, though, since they had an Irish
stew, they might as we'll have eaten
anywhere else. But they didn't much
notice what they ate.
The light was not quite out of the
sky, when 100 600 persons stood to-
gether in silence around the still lagoon
that runs from the Administration
building, waiting-waiting for thing
so much part and parcel of this cen
fury that never can the one be spoken
of in ages to come and be disassociated
from the other. The sky was cold
blue. Against it the exquisite buildings
with dome, and sloping lines, and statue
and tower, outlined themselves clearly
and delicately. Beyond the peristyle
the blue lake cleaned, and in the cas-
there hung star. The great white
mountain poured its musical streams Of
water down the cleaning steps. The
gondolas drifted back and forth noise
lessly on the lagoon. Schubert's "Sere
made" of all things in the world, came
softly down through the space, throb
bling with passion.
Suddenly there was transformation