Upon the mantel-shelf there
was a small marble figure, one of the Dancing Graces: the other
two were gone, gone in pledge. This one was left, twirling her
foot, and stretching out her hands in a dreary sort of ecstasy,
with no one to respond. For a moment, so empty and bitter seemed
her home and her life, that she thought the lonely dancer with
her flaunting joy mocked her,--taunted them with the slow, gray
desolation that had been creeping on them for years. Only for a
moment the morbid fancy hurt her.
The red glow was healthier, suited her temperament better. She
chose to fancy the house as it had been once,--should be again,
please God. She chose to see the old comfort and the old beauty
which the poor school-master had gathered about their home. Gone
now. But it should return. It was well, perhaps, that he was
blind, he knew so little of what had come on them. There, where
the black marks were on the wall, there had hung two pictures.
Margret and her father religiously believed them to be a Tintoret
and Copley. Well, they were gone now. He had been used to dust
them with a light brush every morning, himself, but now he said
always,--
"You can clean the pictures to-day, Margret. Be careful, my
child."
And Margret would remember the greasy Irishman who had tucked
them under his arm, and flung them into a cart, her blood growing
hotter in her veins.
It was the same through all the house; there was not a niche in
the bare rooms that did not recall a something gone,--something
that should return.
Pages:
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48