The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1905-05-31
have taught me a lesson. / thank God
for it, and for giving me you"

lieve and Saranne as it passes in q
dream.
Not for a few days, but for many
weeks, did they abide in the country
with Mr.. Deepdsle and Walter.
They were willing enough and would
have been content to have remained
forever with friends so faithful.
When in the early morning they
heard the singing of the birds outside
their window they could scarcely be-
lieve they were awake, and were often
| afraid to move lest the sweet sounds
should suddenly change into the harsh
cries of the Clare Market coster-
monger.
The trees bending down with the
weight of fruit, the ripening and the
cutting of the corn. the fragrant per-
fume which rose from hedge and field,
even from the commonest roadsides,
after the rain, the glorious sunrises
which they were not too indolent to
rise to see, the flaming sunsets which
tipped the branches of the distant
trees and shone in distant windows
! with fiery, ruby glow, the wheeling
and the cawing of the rocks as they
returned to their nests, the little water
fall which fed the brook in which Wal
ter and his father fshed-these and
numberless other instances of natures
summer beauty filed their souls not
only with wonder, but with worship.
Their wonder and their worship grew
when Walter took them to the seaside,
and they saw for the first time the
boats and the ships coming and going,
and the great ocean which stretched
as Walter told them, to other lands
in which people dwelt thousands and
thousands of miles away.
Was it possible that the world could
be so beautiful?
The squalor, the privations, the mis-
cry, the hourly struggle Of their lives
had vanished, and they breathed the
air of Lotos land.
In more senses than one was this
true.
For what Saranne, being very beau
tiful in her springtime-in which a
beauty lies no painters brush can
catch-should have failed to make an
impression upon Walter was scarcely
possible.
He saw her now in a new light; in a
pretty soft dress, with a healthy color
in her cheeks, with sparkles in her
eyes.
And there was a certain refinement
in her which had no room to show it.
self in their squalid home in Clare
Market; she was even ladylike-the
very reverse of Little Make-Believe,
whom nothing outwardly could refine.
It is written that love makes no dis
tinctions; mobiles have stopped to u
try maids, kings to peasants; wider
CULTS have been bridged than that
which up till now had divided Saranne
from Walter.
When heart commingles with heart in
innocence and honor, youth being there
to favor the conjunction, it is easy to
divine what will occur.
1t occurred to Saranne and Walter,
and they yielded to the spell Of the en-
chanter whose presence bestows on all
surrounding things a glory they never
before possessed.
1t is a song whose pictured images
are mirrored in the midday's clouds, in
the nights shadows, in the bosom of
running water.
The breeze whispers it, the birds sing
it; it is heard in the drowsy murmur
of the woods.
Through all ages it has been sung
by mortals below. by angels above.
1t was heard on the first day by the
first man and woman, and shall be
heard until the last, ever carrying with
it, when it is pure, a sweet and chas-
tening influence.
For not alone in joy does it make it
self known; it reigns in sorrow also,
when death has taken q dear n from
US, and the mantle then it wears is
such as the angels wear.
In their rambles through field and
wood, in their idlings by the waters
side, in their excursions here and there
to gather flowers, to visit poor cottages,
one of Little Make-Believe's chief
pleasures, to see how the hops were
getting on, to pick ~blackberries, to wit
ness country sports, Saranne and Wal
ter were invariably together, Little
Make-Believe invariably a little apart.
1t was not premeditated; it happened
so naturally and was accepted.
When missing her-which was not
always the case-they turned and
called to her, she joined them, with
smiles on her lips and in her eyes, but
otherwise she fingered in the back
ground, occupied with her dreams.
Strange that she, who in her secret
soul loved Walter with all the strength
of which her nature was capable, with
q love which in nc wise weakened that
she bore her sister-strange that she
should be blind to what was passing
between Walter and Saranne.
Stranger still that, for the first time
since she had taken upon herself a
mothers duty to a sister but little
younger than herself, she should be so
engrossed By a secret affection of her
W as not to perceive a newer and
more pregnant meaning in Saranne's
every word and look.
But only for i little while was the
veil before her eyes.
Mr.. Deepdale being absent in Lon
L. <-l:.IS. L. hnl hon lntQll, 1-nrI,