The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-10-31
THE uTERMoUnTAN AND COLORADO CATHOLICS OCTOBER 81 1908

''I?" she bushed adoraby, and looked up and
down with frightened, repentant eyes. OH am
SO sorry~
care YOU sorry-for me?' Their eyes met for
an instant
'Please look at this picture, 1t is one 1 am very
much interested in. 1t is made from an old por-
trait. The original was my great-great-grand-
father Matthew Hale. He married the witehs
daughter"
81" said Curtis, "am going to marry her great
great-great- granddaughter"
She seemed not to hear "There is another pic
ture YOU must see 1t is hung in the main gallery.
Gomez
He followed blindly. There were more people
about this picture and there was foolish hum OF
voices discussing technic and values At first Cur
It's did not see very clearly because of the haze that
dimmed his eyes and brain. Gradually he per
ceived that there hung before him the clue OF a
great unraveng, the key of many mysteries
The picture showed colonial kitchen, its hum
BILE furniture spinning wheel, musket and sanded
floor dwarfed into insgnifcance by the great fire
place whose vast chimney yawned across the can
vas On stool beside the fire sat a girl IN home
spun gray with a white kerchief drawn about her
neck her soft hair braided down her back her hands
folded in her lap her eyes upon the blaze. Oppo-
site her sat gray cat, her tail wrapped da1ntlly
over her feet her eyes upon the blaze. Between
them up the cavernous chimney throat fled shadoWy
thngs-steeple-crowne witch and splitting cat:
with wagner shapes of weird and pulling import
1t was all painted with a breadth and grasp and
audacity which claimed the eye, challenged the
mind perplexed the heart. What did 1t mean!
What hints of misery? of evil! of agony! How
did they touch that quiet mind and the placid cat!
Do the souls of these gentle Preside creatures too,
ride the night-winds of the world!
Curtis simple mans mind CROPPED for clue to
his own fate in this hooking, haunting pose OF the
eternal feminine, for the girl and the cat were one
like the girl and the eat he knew-unmistakably the
girl and the cat he knew
at is called The Fireside Sphinx explained
Miss Graydon, pointing in her catalogue with
small grav-gloved finger, after Agnes ReppheTs
book you know. Painted by Alice Ardith. You
may have seen her. Her window almost looks into
yours"
"rThe sarcastic girl stammered Curtis.
"My best friend" she observed. Then, stirred
either to pity or confusion beneath his imporing
eyes, II think i am going home now. Ii you care
to come too
'But [ don't understand" said Curtis, very
much later, chow you knew about my room"
"Once when | was posing she murmured, oJ-
blla ran away, and climbed out on the roof to get
her She always made for your window; and |
knew you lived there; and people we're talking about
YOU so much-I suppose-l-must-h ave-looked!
"But you couldn't have seen that poem, Gods
of Egypt
pupils of her round eyes widening. Il looked at
Won. and wiled to know-and [ knew! There is
wtch-blood in meP
cone thing more" asked Curtis reverently.
"How did Graygown-Sybilla, [ mean-get away
the day locked her inH'
"Why Alice fshed her out over the transom IN
basket with catnip in it. And there are such
things as telephones, you know. And now she
mused plaintivey, II have old,everything and you
will not care any moreW
Curtis replied with the most convincing argu-
ments to the contrary which occurred to him. but
as these happened not to be verbal, they cannot be
herewith reported
But she protested, my great-great-great-
grandmother was hanged Besides, in way So
billa is me-"
"Graygown!" cried Curtis rapturousy.
Something furry and purry rubbed against his
foot.
1t was little gray cat.-Laura L. Hinkley, In
The Home MAGAZINE