The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1895-06-07


at her aspirations and ambitions as at
the amusing vagaries of a petted infant.
They gave her the harp ON which she
wanted to play, just as they had given
her the talking doll she coveted and
made friends with when she was child.
They let her buy herself poetry books,
just as they had let her buy sweetmeats.
They were good and dear-oh, SO good
and dearl-she said to herself on this
morning of her thirtieth birthday. But
they did not know her No one had
ever known her. OF that she felt GER
tain.
She took little hand mirror from
her dressing table and began to study
her face in it. The features had not
changed very much since she was 20.
Perhaps the eyes were little more sad,
and the cheeks had not quite the wild
rose bloom that belonged to them ten
years ago, but really there was not SO
very much difference Then she held the
glass nearer and looked in it little
more closely. There were-yes, there
were-wrinkles, slight, yet unmistaka-
ble at the corners of her eyes. They
were big blue eyes, by the way, with
black lashes. The young gold Of her
hair was turning to autumnal brown.
And the lips that had never been warm
ed by kisses 3oenCd to have grown
thinner.
"Yes," she said, "ah, yes, l am old
erl can see it in the glass. l am not
so pretty as i was, but what good did
the prettiness do? Who ever loved me
really, unless She did not finish the
sentence. II she had, it would have
been unless Tom did"
And then she laid down the glass,
and her thoughts went on long jour
ney, back to the faraway days when
Tom Rhodes used to come home with
her from all sorts of places and look at
her with such eloquent eyes that she
had not forgotten their language even
yet. She had never let him go farther
than looking, however. The world
her unconquered kingdom-was all be-
fore her in those days, and she did not
mean to take Tom for prime minister.
He was dear, good fellow. She used
always to think that when she thought
about him at all. But there were poets
in the world, and painters and states
men, and Tom-was only Tom. He
taught school in the winter and was
busy on his widowed mothers small
farm in the summer, and try how You
would you could not fancy him in the
aspect of conquering hero. So she had
kept Tom from speaking, and finally his
mother had died, and he had sold the
little farm, had gone away to that
vague part of the world known in those
days as "out west" What he had done
there or what had become of him who
knew? Not Eleanor, at any rate.
She wondered if it were such keen
torture to other women to feel that they
had grown old. 1t seemed to her, just
then, that youth was all-all. She had
quaffed its wine, and now in the cup
were dregs only. And then she sadly
smiled. What wine had she ever quaff-
ed, after all? People used to call her
beautiful-and surely she must have
been at least pretty-but what good had
it done herr The right sutton had never
come. OF the few who seemed to care
for her she thought in this hour only Of
Tom. She remembered tones and looks.
Shy flowers, shyly given; tender little
cares for her comfort in small things.
But in those old days her ambition soar
ed far beyond Tom. Would it have
been better had she cared for him?
Would he have understood her? Would
love have made that possible? For she
felt now that her deepest longing had
always been to be understood. Love that
was given to the external Eleanor would
never have been enough. She must meet
some one who had the key to her deep
est soul, else must she live and die more
solitary than any monk of old in his
hidden hermitage.
Could it be that she had thrown away
what might have been life's fullness OF
Joy? All, well, it was of no use to won.
der nowl Tom was far away, and she
was 80 years old. Just then she saw
the old village postman coming slowly
down the street. She threw up the win
dow and reached out an impatient hand
for the letters he brought They were
all from schoolgirl friends, she saw, as
she glanced at the handwriting ON the
envelopes She was not in the mood to
care much for them. "Drearily uninter-
esting," she said to herself as she open
ed one. A slip of paper dropped from it
unheeded. Eleanor read on listlessly.
Suddenly her eyes kindled She had
come to this sentence: Il used to hear
you speak of Tom Rhodes-an aspirant
a 4 - =