Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1902-09-25
"a Knot of
Daisies :" X
BY JULIA NJ. KNIGHT.

| the night, the prima donna, the lovely
made Lucia of the evening, sits resting
in her dainty dressing-room while her
maid restores order from chaos. On
chair, sofa and table, roses, violets and
the rarest eXotics, tributes from I'M
known admirers, are piled in riotous
confusion, while the air is sweet with
subtle fragrance, but in her hand
she clasps a simple knot of white
daisies, while dreamy look steals
over her exquisite face.
Each night for a month past has the
same token come to her from an UNI
seen hand, till she attaches a certain
significance to the flowers, hidden
meaning that none other could read. a
knot of daisies-a watt from the open
country, reminder of the past-thc
past, when as careless, sunburnt
girl she had strolled through green
lanes and byways, undermining of fu-
ture greatness.
A lovely voice, gift of bounteous ma
ture which Knocked the wild birds in
it's sweetness and melody, a passing
stranger who heard her by chance one
day, an impressario who in the simple
rustic traced the future prima donna
and the opportunity of her life came.
Years of ceaseless work, high ambi-
ton and taxing experience lay be-
tween her and that careless past; May
Walton, the nut-brOwn maid, could
scarce be recognized now in Persis Bell,
the famed cantatrice, in the bloom OF
her beauty, the fullness of her pow
ers; yet at this moment memory holds
her in its thralldom and eXacts its due.
A knot of daisies-she closes her
eyes and can see them still, rank upon
rank, field upon field, tall, slender and
fair, rocking, rollicking in the wind
that blows; the breath of spring is
abroad, blue skies are laughing in the
sunlight, robins sing in the treetops,
nature has awakened from her long
sleep to life and beauty once again.
She signs; does she know regret for
the past? She has won all that wom-
an may, and in a few short years.
From the obscurity of an unknown
village she has risen to an enviable
height in the world of music. Now, in
the flush and charm of her youth. she
tastes the sweet intoxicated draught
of fame; yet is she happy?
If she knows pang of regret for the
old careless days, the light heart, the
girlish dreams, the friends of her
youth, it's but mood of the moment
that will pass. One must pay some
penalty for greatness; she would not
go back if she could--she could not If
she would. Yet tonight memory is
insistent, conjures up visions she
would fain forget; the friend of her
childhood, the companion of her
youth, the lover whom she sacrificed
to ambition, besieges her heart storm
lily; speaks to her in these innocent
flowers, makes accusation of faithless-
ness and the blacklist treachery.
Without one word she had passed
from his life-broken her plighted
vows-hidden her identity under an
other name, that none might follow
and find her. In all these years she
had made no sign to recall him; atone
for the cruel suffering she had caused.
Yet some day they will meet again;
she feels it-she knows it. These sip
pie flowers herald his coming, it may
be- and the hour of their meeting is
close at hand. Her woman's heart
quickens at the thought, for through
out her brilliant, charmed career, the
incense of the worlds homage, these
early memories still hold her fast, and
assert their claim.
For the first time in her life she
looks beyond the glamour of the foot
lights, searches her audience for
familiar face and form, and not in
vain An hour later they clasp hands
behind the scenes, exchange greetings
as friends may who have been separat-
ed bv time and chance; while her Wom-
ans wit and GOODNESS tide over the
temporary embarrassment Of the oc-
casion.
Frank Granger had changed, too, in
all these years, yet she can still trace
her boy lover in his simple mapliness;
he, too, has won his way in the world
since he left the old home-nest, which,
after her mysterious fight, had be-
come uncomfortable.
Yet he has no word of blame for her;
he makes no single painful allusion to
the past and the claim he once had on
her love and devotion. He listens with
apparent pleasure to the tale of her
vivid, changing life, her triumphs at
home and abroad, her ardent ambition
in the career of her choice.
He seems content to accept the stu
alton, to drop the veil of oblivion over
the vanished past. 1t is well-and yet,
in a sense, strange beyond belief. She
had dreaded that first meeting, know
ing her lover as she did; she had forti-
fed herself to encounter just blame
and recrimination from one who had
the right to speak, one who had been
outraged in his deepest feelings.
For a few breathless moments she
had felt somewhat as the Indian does
when his slight canoe slips over the
rapids; and then it passed, and she
realized the folly of her fears. Six
years had passed since those old never
to-be-forgotten days, and time, which
softens the hardest judgment, robs the
sharpest sorrow of its sting, makes
sad change in the warmest of lovers.
At first she feels calmness and secur-
ity in his presence, pleasure in the re-
newal of old-time friendship; but as
the days slip by, and his simple
camaraderie and composure remain
unchanged, she is both pigued and puz-
zled, confronted by problem which
I'll her woman's wit cannot solve.
"And that man loved me once" she
comments, bitterly. "When was bnt
poor country maiden, unknowiDg and
unknown. Now l am beautiful WON
an at the height of my powers; have
| oJr,;raro in my train fame