E-text prepared by Al Haines
Author of "The Choir Invisible," "A Kentucky Cardinal," etc., etc.
New York, 1903
To My Sister
She did not wish any supper and she sank forgetfully back into thestately oak chair. One of her hands lay palm upward on her whitelap; in the other, which drooped over the arm of the chair, sheclasped a young rose dark red amid its leaves—an inverted torch oflove.
Old-fashioned glass doors behind her reached from a high ceiling tothe floor; they had been thrown open and the curtains looped apart.Stone steps outside led downward to the turf in the rear of thehouse. This turf covered a lawn unroughened by plant or weed; butover it at majestic intervals grew clumps of gray pines anddim-blue, ever wintry firs. Beyond lawn and evergreens a flowergarden bloomed; and beyond the high fence enclosing this, tree-topsand house-tops of the town could be seen; and beyond these—away inthe west—the sky was naming now with the falling sun.
A few bars of dusty gold hung poised across the darkening spaces ofthe supper room. Ripples of the evening air, entering through thewindows, flowed over her, lifting the thick curling locks at thenape of her neck, creeping forward over her shoulders and passingalong her round arms under the thin fabric of her sleeves.
They aroused her, these vanishing beams of the day, these arrivingbreezes of the night; they became secret invitations to escape fromthe house into the privacy of the garden, where she could be alonewith thoughts of her great happiness now fast approaching.
A servant entered noiselessly, bringing a silver bowl of frozencream. Beside this, at the head of the table before hergrandmother, he placed scarlet strawberries gathered that morningunder white dews. She availed herself of the slight interruptionand rose with an apology; but even when love bade her go, love alsobade her linger; she could scarce bear to be with them, but shecould scarce bear to be alone. She paused at her grandmother'schair to stroke the dry bronze puffs on her temples—a uniqueimpulse; she hesitated compassionately a moment beside her aunt,who had never married; then, passing around to the opposite side ofthe table, she took between her palms the sunburnt cheeks of ayouth, her cousin, and buried her own tingling cheek in his hair.Instinct at that moment drew her most to him because he was youngas she was young, having life and love before him as she had; only,for him love stayed far in the future; for her it came to-night.
When she had crossed the room and reached the hall, she paused andglanced back, held by the tension of cords which she dreaded tobreak. She felt that nothing would ever be the same again in thehome of her childhood. Until marriage she would remain under itsdear honored roof, and there would be no outward interruption ofits familiar routine; but for her all the bonds of life would havebecome loosened from old ties and united in him alone whom thisevening she was to choose as her lot and destiny. Under theinfluence of that fresh fondness, therefore, which wells up sostrangely within us at the thought of parting from home and homepeople, even though we may not greatly care for them, she now stoodgazing at the picture they formed as though she were alreadycalling it back through the distances of memory and the changes offuture years.
They, too, had shifted their positions and were looking at her