The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-09-25

"What shall 1 recite7" she asked
appealingly of the women.
They sat with decorously folded
hands.
Something suitable to the occa-
sion, one said primly.
Rena thought shade of protest
fitted across the white face on the
bed. Little Boy Blue" flashed to
her bewildered memory, and she
eagerly caught at it. Even to her
self her voice had never sounded so
pathetic as she told the tender little
story.
When she finished, the two stolid
women were wiping their eyes, and
heavy tears lay on the sick woman's
white cheeks. Again she opened
those weary eyes, and to the girls
thought there was reckoning in
them. She followed herimpulse and
bent over the bed.
"Now something-different," the
woman gasped.
A sudden inspiration flashed to
Rena's mind. She stood we'll out in
the room and commenced the "Char
lot Race" from "Ben Hur." Both
nature and art had done great deal
for her in an Evolutionary way. She
had recited before critical friends,
and envious ones, before exacting,
cultivated audiences, out her widest
fancy had never placed her in SO
difficult position as this. The home
| ly room, with its chilling quiet, the
death-like auditor on the bed, her
solemn eyes following every move
ment, was oppressive and uncanny,
but never had she recited as she did
that day.
The great amphitheatre with its
brilliant, frenzied populace, the rush
and trample of the horses, the breath
less hush, the crash of the wild cha
riots, the triumph of the matchless
Arabs and their wonderful driver,
swayed and surged and beat through
the room like mighty wind.
The two women sat with open
mouths and staring eyes.
The man had come inside the door
and stood erect. clinching his hands
in his excitement.
THAT was race as was a race"
he said in a loud, resonant voice, for
getful for an instant of everything
but the story.
Then they looked toward the bed.
The sick woman was sitting up.
"Oh!" she cried, with note of
long-drawn ecstasy, then fell back
exhausted.
"She's Dead" cried Rena, in
culver of fear.
There was a horror stricken in
slant. Then she reused and spoke
almost strongly, grasping convul-
sively at the girls warm, dimpled
hand in her cold, wasted fingers:
Maybe I'll live till tomorrow, if
you'll promise to come again"
"I'll surely come" Rena said soft
ly. then slipped out.
She was full of her odd experience.
but she told it at the dinner table
that evening with touch of hest
fancy; somehow she did not feel like
having much said about it.
Doctor Randolph was there, too,
and she wondered anxiously what he
would think. Somehow, the recita-
ton of thing like that to a dying
woman suddenly seemed rude and
ill-timed. Her cheeks burned.
The doctor looked at her thought
fully.
Possibly you can cure her, Miss
Rena," he said. Sometimes in
low fever the patient gets apathetic
and Indifferent, and slips away from
sheer lack of energy. Maybe you
can reverse the idea somewhat, and,
as second Scheherazade. chain the
poor woman to life by your elo-
| quence."
He looked up and caught the deep
flush on Rena's face.
81 beg your pardon, Miss Rena, I
am not entirely joking. l do not
know the case, but the result is not
impossible. How about tomorrow
thought Had you forgotten the golf
matchi believe the party is to
start at seven and return by moon
RISE"
Rena caught her breath.
II had forgotten, she answered.
She sat silent, hardly touching her
dessert. The party going out next
morning were just the people she
liked. The exhilarating spin over
the perfect roads in the lovely, fra
grant, June morning; the informal
dinner at the charming club house.