Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

“ Sometimes it seems to me that the maid will wed without loving, so sorrowful she is for lack of love to return for love, and so willing to bestow her sweetness and kindness upon all.”
“Nay, that she must not do,” cried Fielding. Then his face flushed angrily at the other's laugh.
“Caught you are already at the mere tale of a maid's charms,” cried John Brooks, with an elfish twinkle, “and what will you be at the sight of her? Your mouth is all ready for sweets, Harry. Make ready yourself in your best before the Whitfield stage arrives. Is any of your own family coming, Harry?” ”

“ Isabel tried to laugh gayly. “Indeed, sir, your son has eyes,” she said.
“Eyes which see not,” returned Deacon Fielding, with a glance at the slender form of the dreamer disappearing down the alley, and another of acuteness at the girl, who looked exceedingly fair to him, as she sat sewing with the leaf-shadows playing over her. “There are those who see and yet know not that they see, and those who only come to know the real through dreams,” he added. “Maybe my son is of that kind.”
Isabel blushed until the soft red tinted all the ivory of her face and neck. ”

“ A strong imagination had Harry Fielding, and was given to writing poetry upon the sly, and his mental vision projected itself towards the future and the unseen to such an extent that he had a species of mental short-sightedness, but knew it not. Dreams were to him more real than verities, and a verity to become substantial to him must needs be transposed into a dream. All this John Brooks, who had a wit and understanding beyond his years, knew, and regaled himself upon, although his friend knew nothing of it. ”

“ Then she stood before her cousin, her head hanging. “There was paint on my cheeks and there was gold on my hair, and I am not the fair Lavinia,” she said, pitifully, and yet with a certain dignity.
Harry stood regarding her. “Oh, Isabel,” he said, “it was your miniature, and it was you whom I loved and I knew it not. I sought her afar, and all the time she sat on my own hearthstone, so near that I saw her not. Can you ever forgive me, Isabel, and can you ever love a man who has been so blind?” ”

“ He saw her: that gentle, pitying creature of ivory and rose and silver, fashioned like some sweet idol of the emotions. He saw her before him with the eyes of his spirit; he noted the radiant droop of her golden curls, the mottled shell of the comb which crowned them, the wonderful soft radiance of her blue eyes, and her tender smile, which withheld nothing and offered nothing, but was wholly maidenly, and he smiled at her with his whole soul, and loved her with his whole soul. ”

“ But when Isabel spoke he considered that no doubt the fair Lavinia had a voice to the full as sweet and low, and as full of maidenly dignity as hers, He glanced at Isabel's delicate little hands, and knew for certain that Lavinia's would not be one whit less delicate and taper-fingered, and he thought that Lavinia, who doubtless had a fine taste for the adorning of such a lovely person as hers, must of a surety possess a canary-colored silk gown. ”

“ Wild music filled his brain: that music which the first man had heard and followed. His own feet almost followed it. This music began and ended in the earth and the joy of life, but that in itself seemed eternal. ”

“ With that Fielding pointed to a bed of pinks which were bursting from their calyxes with excess of bloom and exhaling a breath of honey and cloves.
Brooks looked at him contemptuously. “As much like other girls as one of the pinks like the others!” mocked he. “She is a rose among common blooms, or a lily. You are thinking but of the fair Lavinia. How near is the cousin-ship between you and that beauty?”
“Not near,” replied Harry, absently, staring down the road, from which columns of golden dust were slowly rising in the light of the setting sun. “I hear the Whitfield stage.” ”

“ So Harry missed yet again seeing his fair Lavinia, and in his distress he did not notice John Brooks's infatuation for Isabel. Indeed, Eliza helped to conceal the fact, for she was ever at Harry's elbow talking about Lavinia and increasing his mad imagination and desire for her, that her brother might have his chance to talk alone with Isabel. The afternoon of the day before they returned to Whitfield, John Brooks, coming upon Isabel in the arbor, spoke his mind, and went down on his knees before her and asked her to marry him. ”

“ Presently she slipped away — although Harry gazed ruefully after her, for he wished to hear more of the fair Lavinia — and sought her brother. He was about to seek Isabel Done, but he turned at his sister's touch on his arm. “John, John,” whispered Eliza, “find me some one save that youth, some one who has not so much fancy and sharper eyes. I have not worn my best gown for nothing, nor my gold chain. I will not be looked past for Lavinia.” ”

“ Harry sat in a window-seat with Eliza Brooks and listened, and talked between the songs, and always the talk turned upon the fair Lavinia Creevy, although at last Eliza spoke of Isabel Done. “How the young men cluster about her! It is like bees around a cherry blossom,” said she.
Harry gave a start and a quick frown, and looked at the cousin whose fair head gleamed dully among her swarm of admiring swains. Then his face relaxed as Eliza spoke again of the fair Lavinia. ”

“ The fair Lavinia is tall and slender, but not too slender, and she has the way of a gentle and good woman; and yet she can laugh, when the matter be worth laughter, not giggling at naught, as is the way with some maids. She is discreet and modest, and she is not shamefaced, since she knows well her own worth, though she is not puffed up by it. ”

“ The possession of the miniature had seemed to assure him of the ultimate possession of his dream. “Sure am I now that my prayers will be answered, and that I shall at last see in the flesh my fair Lavinia,” he said to Isabel on his first homecoming. Harry's faith remained intact, although he was always disappointed in his plans for seeing the fair Lavinia during his stay at the theological school. Always something happened to prevent it. ”

“ Isabel made a little impatient movement of her shoulders as she cut the sugar. “People do not die so easily,” said she; “but if your heart is so set upon it, I will write to Miss Eliza Brooks and say to her that upon reflection I accept her kind invitation if she sees fit to renew it.”
That very afternoon Harry Fielding took a letter folded and sealed to the tavern whence the Whitfield stage started. Then in due time came a letter from Miss Eliza Brooks, and also one from John, and it was settled that in mid-summer Harry and Isabel should spend a week in Whitfield. ”