The Richmond palladium. (Richmond, Ind.) 1906-1907, 1906-11-10
MARY E..
WILKINS
Copyright. 1900. by DOUBLEDAY. PAGE a co.

edge, and maybe curious. for all thirsl
is not for the noblest ends. crawled
through u gap in the snowy May hedge
| and was sinking across the park OF
/ Cavendish Hall with long, loose jointed
! lopes like q stray puppy. and, maybe
with some sense of being where
| should not, though l could not have
rightly told why. since there were no
| warnings up against trespassers and |
| had no designs upon any hare or deer.
Be that as it may, l was going along
| in such fashion through the greenness
| of the park. so deep with rich lights
| and shadows on it that May morning
| that is seemed like plunging thought
| high in n green sea, when suddenly
| stopped and my heart leaped, for there
| sat in the grass before me, clutching
some of it with a tiny hand like pink
pearl. the sweetest little maid that ever
| this world held.
| All in white she was and of a stuff
| so thin that her baby curves of inno-
| cence showed through it, and the little
| smock slipped low down over her rosy
| shoulders, and her little toes curled
1 plllh III ItlS SItcu SIaSS, lOE Suc ndo lIO
shoes on, having run away before she
was dressed by some oversight of her
| black nurse. and down from her head,
| over all her tiny body hiding all save
| the merest glimmer of the loneliness of
| her face, fell the most wonderful show
| er of gold locks that ever a baby of
only two years possessed. She sat
there with the sunlight glancing on her
through Il rift in the trees, all i'll a web
| Of gold, floating and flying on the May
wind, and for a minute 1, being well
instructed in such lore, thought she
was no m"rtal child, but something
more, as she was indeed, but in anoth-
er sense.
1 stood there and looked and looked,
and she still pulled up tiny handfuls
of the green grass and never turned nor
knew me near, when suddenly there
burst with a speed like a storm, and a
storm indeed it was of brute life, with
loud stamps of a very fury of sound
which shook the earth as with a
mighty tread of thunder, out of thick
er part of the wood, a great black stall
lion on a morning gallop with all the
freedom of the spring and youth firing
his blood. and one step more and his
iron hoofs would have crushed the
child. But was first. 1 flung myself
upon her and threw her like a feather
knew for awhile.
When 1 knew myself again there was
a mighty pain in my shoulder, which
seemed TO be the center of my whole
existence by reason of it, and there was
the feel Of baby kisses on my lips. The
courage of her blood was in that tiny
maid. She had no thought of fight nor
tears, though she knew not but that
black thunderbolt would return, and
she knew not what my CHASTITY silence
meant. She had crept close to me,
though she might well have been
bruised, such a tender thing she was,
by the rough fling 1 had given her, and
was trying to kiss me awake as she
did her father. And 1, rude boy, all
IMMERSED in grace and tenderness and
hitherto all unsought of love, felt her
soft lips on mine and looking saw that
baby face all clouded about with gold.
and l loved her forever.
l knew not how to talk to a little
petted treasure of life like that, and
/ dared not speak, but / looked at her,
and she seemed not to be afraid, but
laughed with q merriment of triumph
at seeing me awake, and something
she said in the sweetest tongue of the
world, which 1 yet made poor shift to
understand. for her baby speech. be-
sides its incompleteness, had also
long drawn sweetness like the slow
trickle of honey, which she had caught
loo faI, oh.
had about her since her birth.
l had great ado to move, though my
shoulder was not disjointed, only sore
ly bruised, but finally I was on my
feet again. though standing rather
weakly. and with an ear alert for the
return of that wild, careering brute,
and the little maid was close at my
side, with one rosy set of fingers
clinging around two Of my rough
brown ones with that sweet tenacity |
of baby grasp which can hold the |
strongest thing on earth.
And she kept on jabbering with that |
slow murmur of sweetness. and stood /
looking down at her. catching my |
breath with the pain in my shoulder, |
though 1t was out of my thoughts with |
this new love of her, and then came |
my father, Colonel John Chelmsford, |
and Captain Geoffry Cavendish, walk |
ing through the park in deep converse. |
and came upon us, and stopped and |
stared. as well they might.
Captain Geoffry Cavendish was a |
gaunt man with the hectic color of a |
fever. which he had caught in the new t
country, still in the hollows Of his /
cheeks. He was quite young, with /
sudden alertness OF glances In bright +
black eyes like the new color in jewels /
when the light shifts. His daughter |
has the same, though her eyes are /
blue. Moreover, through having been
in the royal navy before he got
The baby that caused
the accident