Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1900-11-23

NIadge would have known 1t at n
glance, without that label on it.
For an instant she stood staring.
Then, rather that her limbs failed
under her than that she desired to sit
down opposite the picture, she dropped
upon the bench before it, her some
what shabbily gloved hands folded
on her lap.
Her dress was n little shabby, too.
The long, black mourning veil clung
about her Imply, as she pushed it
back out of her way.
To any passer-by she might seem
but one of the crowd in the Corcoran
Gallery on 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-
cession.
a year ago. Was 1t only year
ago?-it seemed lifetime back into
that happy Wanderjahr which ended
so abruptly.
1t was on the homeward passage to
suddenly, of heart failure, it was said
But Madge knew he had gotten his
death blow from the latest American
paper which the pilot brought on
board rs they entered the bay, a pa
per lightly opened, and which con-
tained 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 bunch of field daisies bought
from street boy on the way up town.
A beggar?-no. but never farther re-
moved from that than since she had
become 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
which she and her party had descend
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 hushes 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-b believe vii
lage girls; the merry stirs, the laugh
ter and light repartee among the tour.
lists; the gay village music; the farm
house glowing in the background, its
tall chimney ending in n cross, built
high against the sky.
How like, how like it was!
But Madge's thought broke off with
a gasp.
In one of those faces, half turned
toward her, she had recognized her
own, as in looking glass.
How well-too well-she remem-
bered! The artists eyes; no words
of his. Few 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-seers are apt to cross
and re-cross; as had theirs from the
time when, with an apology, he put
an extra rug across her lap in the
weird day-night when she sat on the
deck of the stout coast steamer, watch
ing for the midnight sun off Norway,
to that Eve of ST. John, that midSum-
mer 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, in
which fairies and peasants dances
were intertwined in Titanias train, and
the artist was Lysander standing
apart, looking on at it all, with his
hands in his pockets and n cigar in
his mouth, and that in his eyes.
Madge's color was hickenng up into
her weary face again at that memory
and then it faded out; for while she
slept her father had been revising bis
plans for further travel. That unlucky
meeting on the mountain had damp
ened his desire for northern travel The
next morning (when the artist had gone
forward, with the tacit understanding
that at the foot of a certain famous
waterfall deep in the mountain fast
ness, one might very well meet mid
summer friends again over n rather
late breakfast her father unfolded his