Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1900-10-26
I MIDSUMMER DAYS DREAM
HSsSSSSs$ > -; > = > : SSgSsSeSsSsSis5
SpGE started violently as
Ky Marian OIL. Reeves. .

even vi careless pdSSer-Uy.
-yTeseatcA 1t, and to hold it, with its
warmth and depth of coloring and its
quaint tone, like that of Valks-Lied.
Est. Johns Eve in Norway"
Madge would have known it at
glance, without that label on it,
For an instant She stood staring.
Then, rather that fer limbs failed
under her thap,that she desired to SIT
down opposite the picture. she dropped
upon the bench before 1t, her some
what shabbily gloved hands folded
on her lap.
Her dress was little shabby too.
The long, black mourning veil chung.
about her Imply. 7.as she pushed it
back out Of her way.
= To any passer-by she might seem
Int one of the crowd in the .COrcoran
Gallery OH this free day. - -
But Madge, the real Madge, was not
here at all. She was yonder in the
picture, in the midsummer night in
the midst of the st. Johns Eve pro-
cessicn.
A year ago Was it only year
ago?-it seemed lifetime. back into
that happy Wanderjahr which ended
so abruptly.
1t was on the hOmeward passage to
America that her father had died,
suddenly, of heart failure, it was said.
But Madge knew he had gotten his
lIn1t- lao lot mo,
paper which the pilot brought OH
- board as they entered the bay, pa
per lightly opened, and which con-
tanned latest particulars of the great
bank failure, sweeping clean away the
fortune he had meant to leave his
child.
a beggar" -Madge, bending over
him, had caught that last FAINT word
upon his lips. "A beggar-"
Madge Strengthened herself and
knotted her hands about the little
black silk bag which had carried her
lunch this morning to the office, and
which was now bringing back in its
. mouth a bunch of field daisies bought
from a street boy on the way up town.
"A beggar?-nO. but never farther re-
moved from that than since she had
become IL worker.
But that Wanderjahr, in which her
only work had seemed to be TO work
out her own happiness.
The glamour of it was in her eyes,
gazing back into the picture. How
like one valley to another, sunk among
those Scandinavian mountains. 1t
might have been this very one. into
ed, drenched with a sudden cloudburst
on the mountain top. There was moth
ing for it but to borrow peasant cos
tunes at the friendly guard below;
and bright color fusheS UP Madge's
face now rs she feels again the eyes
of the artist of the party upon her.
as, with the farmers daughter the
three girls travelling together come
out, and for moment fall into line
with the St. Johns Eve dancers troop
ing there from the neighboring vii
lage.
She remembers it all; the artists
eyes. as he looked on; the speedy de
lection of the three make believe vii
lage girls; the merry stirs, the laugh
ter and light repartec among the tour
lists: the gay village music; the farm
house glowing in the background, its
tall chimney ending i'll cross, built
high against the sky.
How like. how like it was.
But Madge's thought broke off with
gasp.
In one Of those faces, half turned
toward her, she had recognized her
own, as in looking glass
How wcll-too well-she rcmem
bered! The artists eyes; no words
OF bis. Jew words had passed be-
tween them. indeed, though for three
weeks they had been meeting almost
daily.
Over those uncrOwded routes the
ways of sight-Scers are apt to cross
and rc-crOss; as had theirs from the
time when. with an apology, lie put
an extra rug across her lap in the
weird daylight when she sat on the
deck Of the stout coast steamer, watch
ing for the midnight sun off Norway,
to that Eve of 81. John. that midsum-
lner eve, which ended it all. For while
Madge slept in the queer little nest
under the caves, and dreamed her
strange, bright, confused, little, inno-
cent midsummer nights dream. i'll
which fairies and peasants dances
were intertwined in Titania's trainand
the artist was Lysander standing
apart looking on at it all, with his
hands in his pockets and cigar in
his mouth, and that in his eyes.
Madge's color was Pickering up into |
her weary face again at that memory, |
and then it faded out for while she |
slept her father had been revising his
plans for further travel. That unlucky |
injecting on the mountain had damp |
sned his desire for northern travel. The
3eXtmOIning (when the artist had gone |
)rward with the tacit understanding |
pat at the foot of certain famous
iterfall deep in the mountain fast
ss, one might very well meet mid
MINER friends agaim over Il rather |
breakfast her father unfolded his /