The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1900-11-08

even of a careless passer-by.
To catch it, and to hold it, with its
warmth and depth of coloring and its
quaint tone, like that of a Valks-Lied.
''St. Johns Eve in Norway"
Madge would have known it at a
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 a little shabby, too.
1.-THE long, black mourning veil chung
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 it only a year
ago?-it seemed a 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
death blow from the latest American
paper which the pilot brought on
board as 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 a 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 a worker.
But that Wanderjahr, in which her
only work had seemed to be to work
out her own happiness.
4 The glamour of it was in her eyes,
J 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 sudden cloudburst
on the mountain top. There was moth
ing for it but to borrow peasant cos
tunes at the friendly guard below;
and a bright color flushes up Madge's
face now as 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 a 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 repartee among the tour
lists; the gay village music; the farm
house glowing in the background, its
tall chimney ending in a cross, built
high against the sky.
+ How like, how like it was,
But Madges thought broke off with
a gasp.
In one of those faces, half turned
toward her, she had recognized her
own, as in Il 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, limo
cent midsummer nights dream in
which fairies and peasants dances
were intertwined in Titania's train, and
the artist was Lysander standing
apart looking on at it all, with his
hands in his pockets and a 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
meeting on the mountain had damp
ened his desire for northern travel. The
4 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
naSc ora ,Otoht very we'll meet mid