Yann

“ He was really petted and humiliated, and even a lover in this mood finds it hard to be just and kind. Without another word, he went to the stable for his horse and buggy; and Yanna, watching at the window, saw him drive furiously down the avenue, without giving her any further recognition. For the young man—little accustomed to disappointment of any kind, and still less to a want of personal appreciation—had become angry at his failure. ”

“ And Yanna felt at once that there was no reasoning with a love like this. Also, it had her most living sympathy. Just in this unreasonable way, she would fain have been loved herself. She looked with admiration on the man capable of it. As he talked of Rose, of her beauty, her sweetness, her facile temper responding to every breath of opinion, to every whim and wish, he talked with an astonishing eloquence; for the highest poetry is struck from the eternal strings of the human heart, and every word Antony said came thrilling from them. ”

“ Let us see, we would dress you in a blue waistcoat with silver braid, and a red kaftan, I think, and red leggings, with yellow shoes; but I think we would give you no knife or pistol in your belt, for I fancy you have a temper of your own. It is a pity that a handsome boy like you should be so fierce. Perhaps we might even arrange that you were fitted to attend on the women-folk. In any case you will be mine—you will belong to your good, kind masters.'"
Yanni's voice had risen, and he spoke quickly, with a red-hot anger vibrating and growing. ”

“ Not even then; for Peter had to discuss the visit and the visitor, and he did so with an interest that astonished Yanna, for she was not aware that her father regarded Rose, not only as an hereditary Van Hoosen, but also as a future daughter-in-law. Afterwards he had to tell Yanna about the horse, and the man who had the horse to sell. “No created creatures,” he said, “are so eulogized as horses are by their owners. And when a man has a horse to sell, you would think, Yanna, that horse flesh was better than human nature. ”

“ Filmer bowed haughtily, and said, “Good morning, Miss Van Hoosen,” and Yanna felt almost as if she had been civilly told to leave the house.
When Rose returned to the dining-room, Yanna had disappeared, and Mrs. Filmer was calmly sipping her bouillon. “Harry will not come down. He says he has a headache. Where is Yanna?” asked Rose.
“She was compelled to go home without delay,” answered Mrs. Filmer. “She seemed afraid of her father—perhaps she has his dinner to cook.”
“Oh, no! Betta does all that kind of work. I think Yanna was disappointed about the ball. It is too absurd of Mr. Van Hoosen!” ”

“ I wonder if she has a lover yet! I suppose not, poor girl! Then there will be fun in watching Harry. Whether he be utterly heartless, or, as mamma thinks, ‘very impressionable,’ he cannot meet Yanna day after day without some consequences. I think, upon the whole, it will be best to keep friends with Yanna.” And having come to this decision, she raised herself from the reflective attitude into which she had fallen, and going to a table wrote as follows:
“My Beloved Yanna: Did you really think that your lowly birth could change my love for you? No, no! ”

“ Culture teaches the average woman to suppress feeling; and Yanna had a great dislike to discuss matters so closely personal to her. She was not ignorant either of Antony’s love for Rose, and his friendship with Harry had been hitherto without a cloud ”

“ That siren has him in a net, he will go to the opera to see her dance; he will forget Yanna, and then, to-morrow, he will talk of a headache—or an important engagement—and Yanna will despise him far more than if he told the whole truth. To-morrow, of course, for I am sure he will not come to-night; and it is Yanna’s last night in the city, too. Men take the heart out of you if you mind their goings-on.”
Miss Alida was right. Harry did not call, and Peter sat and talked with Miss Alida, worrying a little all the time about his daughter’s sickness. ”

“ He had never seen one like it before, but it gave him a thrill, for he knew at once it was the track of a wild deer.
"There are no deer in those hills now," the settlers told Yan. Yet when the first snow came that autumn he, remembering the hoof-mark in the mud, quietly took down his rifle and said to himself, "I am going into the hills every day till I bring out a deer." Yan was a tall, raw lad in the last of his teens. He was no hunter yet, but he was a tireless runner, and filled with unflagging zeal. ”

“ But when I tumbled down Ralph and grandpapa and all did scold me so—and Cousin Sedley was gone. Why did they scold me, Nana? I thought it was brave not to mind danger—like papa.”
“It is brave when one can do any good by it, but not to slide on bad ice, when one must be drowned,” said Anne. “Oh, my dear, dear little fellow, it was a blessed thing you saw that, whatever it was! But why do you call it Pere—Penny Grim?”
“It was, Nana! It was a little man—rather. And one-sided looking, with a bit of hair sticking out, just like the picture of Riquet-with-a-tuft in your French fairy-book.” ”

“ A few hairs of these were compared with those from the tree and left no doubt that the climber was a Coon. Thus Yan got the beginning of the idea that the very hairs of each, as well as its tracks, are different. He learned, also, how wise it is to draw everything that he wished to observe or describe. It was accident, or instinct on his part, but he had fallen on a sound principle; there is nothing like a sketch to collect and convey accurate information of form—there is no better developer of true observation. ”

“ Again the flash—the move of a restless ear, then the oak-boughs moved and Yan trembled, for he knew that the log in the brush was the form of the Sandhill Stag. So grand, so charged with life. He seemed a precious, sacred thing—a King, fur-robed and duly crowned. To think of shooting now as he lay unconscious, resting, seemed an awful crime. But Yan for weeks and months had pined for this. His chance had come and shoot he must. The long, long strain grew tighter yet—grew taut—broke down, as up the rifle went. But the wretched thing went wabbling and pointing all about the little glade. ”

“ Yan remembered that night when he, himself, run down, had turned to face the hunting wolves. He remembered that night when the snow was red with crime and down between them now he dimly saw a vision of an agonized and dying doe, with great, sad eyes, that only asked, "What harm have I done you?" A change came over him and every thought of murder went from Yan as they gazed into each other's eyes—and hearts. For different thoughts and a wholly different concept of the Stag, coming—coming—had come.
"Oh, beautiful creature! One of our wise men has said, the body is the soul made visible ”

“ Their faces and bodies shine from a soap and water scrubbing but around their eyes, where a hasty dousing does not touch, the coal dust sticks like black make-up, giving them a queer, sinister expression. Yank has not washed either face or body. He stands out in contrast to them, a blackened, brooding figure. He is seated forward on a bench in the exact attitude of Rodin's "The Thinker." ”

“ THE STORY OF YUEN YAN, OF THE BARBER CHOU-HU, AND OF HIS WIFE TSAE-CHE
"Do not despair; even Yuen Yan once cast a missile at the Tablets," is a proverb of encouragement well worn throughout the Empire; but although it is daily on the lips of some it is doubtful if a single person could give an intelligent account of the Yuen Yan in question beyond repeating the outside facts that he was of a humane and consistent disposition and during the greater part of his life possessed every desirable attribute of wealth, family and virtuous esteem. ”

“ More deep than love—more strong than hate—the biggest thing
in all the universe—the law of laws.
Grant but this greatest gift of God to man—this single link
concatenating grant, and all the rest are worthless or comprised.
Each year the ancient springtime madness came more strongly on Yan. Each year he was less inclined to resist it, and one glorious day of late April in its twelfth return he had wandered northward along to a little wood a couple of miles from the town. It was full of unnamed flowers and voices and mysteries. ”

“ So trembled Yan; but he knew it was only stag-fever, and he despised it then as he came in time to honor it; and the beast that dwelt within him fired the gun.
The ball splashed short. The buck sprang up and the doe appeared. Another shot, then as they fled, another and another. But away the deer went, lightly drifting across the low round hills.
They say a wild beast cannot look a man in the eyes; Yan found it hard to look a wild beast in the eyes when he was trying to take its life. ”

“ Thus talking now of love, now of grief, now of the future, now of the past, the Prioress found them, and as she was inclined to blame Anne for letting her patient weep, the maiden looked up to her and said, ‘Dear Mother, we are disputing—I want this same Hal to wed me so soon as he can stand and walk. Then I would go home with him to Derwentside, and take care of him.’
The Prioress burst out laughing. ‘Make porridge, milk the ewes and spin their wool? Eh? Meet work for a baron’s daughter!’
‘So I tell her,’ said Harry. ‘She knows not how hard the life is.’
‘Do I not?’ said Anne. ”

“ Couldst thou put us on the scent, King Edward would favour thee and make thee a great dame, and have thee to his Court—nay, maybe give thee what is left of the barony of Clifford.’
‘I know nothing of young lords,’ sulkily growled Anne, who had been hitherto busy with her pets, striking her hand on the table.
‘And I tell thee, Bertram Selby,’ exclaimed the Prioress, ‘that if thou art ware of a poor fatherless lad lurking in hiding in these parts, it is not the part of an honest man to seek him out for his destruction, and still less to try to make the maid he rescued betray him. ”

“ A young man, the best mounted and armed, evidently an esquire, rode forward, exclaiming, ‘Well met, fair Lady Anne! Great have been the Mother Prioress’s fears for you, and she has called up half the country side, lest you should be fallen into the hands of Robin of Redesdale, or some other Lancastrian rogue.’
‘Much she heeded me in comparison with hawk and heron!’ responded Anne. ‘Thanks for your heed, Master Bertram.’
‘I must part from thee and thy sturdy pony. Thanks for the use of it,’ added she, as the squire proceeded to take her from the pony. ”

“ Watch, I mind thee well,’ added Anne. ‘Here’s a slice of pasty to reward thee. Oh! thou art very hungry,’ as the big mouth bolted it whole.
‘Nearly famished, poor rogue!’ said Hal, administering a bone. ‘How far hast thou run, mine own lad! Art fain to come with thy master and see the hermit?’
‘Thou must e’en go,’ growled Simon Bunce, ‘unless the lady’s dog make an end of thee! ‘Tis ever the worthless that turn up.’
‘I would Florimond would show himself as true,’ said the Prioress. ‘Don’t show thy teeth, sir! ”

“ This changed the teepee from a stifling hothouse into a cool, breezy shade.
"An' when ye want to know which way is the wind, if it's light, ye wet your finger so, an' hold it up. The windy side feels cool at once, and by that ye can set your smoke-flaps."
"I want to know about war bonnets," Yan now put in. "I mean about things to do to wear feathers—that is, things we can do."
"Ye kin have races, an' swimmin' an bownarrer shootin'. I should say if you kin send one o' them arrers two hundred yards that would kill a Buffalo at twenty feet. ”

“ Ay, lady, was not mine own grandfather slain by the Musgrave of Leit Hill, and did not my father have his revenge on his son by Solway Firth? Yea, and now not a Graeme can meet a Musgrave but they come to blows.’
‘Nay, but that is not what the good Fathers teach,’ Anne interposed.
‘The Fathers have neither chick nor child to take up their quarrel. They know nought about blood crying for blood! If King Edward caught that brat of Clifford he would make him know what ‘tis to be born of a bloody house.’
Anne tried to say something, but the lay Sister pushed her along. ”

“ From this cause they did not refrain from conversing together freely before him on subjects of the most poignant detail, whereby Yan learned much of their past lives and conduct while maintaining an attitude of impassive unconcern.
Upon a certain evening in the month when the grass-blades are transformed into silkworms Yan was alone in the shop, improving the edge and reflecting brilliance of some of his implements, when he heard the woman exclaim from the inner room: "Truly the air from the desert is as hot and devoid of relief as the breath of the Great Dragon. ”

“ And within was the beautiful Princess Yanee, hidden darkly behind folds of fluttering silk, her face and forehead covered to her starry eyes, as is prescribed, and even these veiled. Yet so strange are the ways of life and of Allah that, being young and full of the wonder which is youth and the curiosity and awe which that which is unknown or strange begets in us all, she was at this very moment engaged in peeping out from behind her veils, the while the bright panorama of the world was passing. And as she looked, behold, there was Abou, gazing wonderingly upon her fine accoutrements. ”

“ What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
These fencing bouts grew more frequent as Yan grew stronger and the doctor's inhibition was removed.
After one of unusual warmth, Yan realized with a chill that all her interest in his pursuits had been an affected one. He was silent a long time, then said: "Mother! you like to talk about your Bible. It tells you the things that you long to know, that you love to learn. You would be unhappy if you went a day without reading a chapter or two. That is your nature; God made you so. ”