text:
The Cat and the King (Lee)

HE had been up this morning at four o'clock, and had crept out through the gate, almost guiltily, and off across the fields for a long walk. There might be nothing wrong in taking a walk at four o'clock in the morning; perhaps no one would have stayed her in her flight through the college gates, munching her bit of crackers and cheese, had they known. But no one knew. She had carefully not inquired....

She had had her walk, with the freshness of the spring luring her on, up Redmond Hill, down the slope by Boardman's and along home by the road, gathering from the bushes on either side the great masses of trailing vines that draped her head and shoulders and hung swaying from her arms. It had been a wonderful walk—pulling the vines from the bushes, shaking the dew from the clustering blossoms and drenching herself in freshness.

The blossoms were a faint, greenish white and, with her green-and-white-striped skirt and white blouse as she stood in the gateway looking in on the college halls, the flowers and the twisting stalks of leaves twined about her and framing her in, she might have been the very spirit of the outdoor world peeping shyly in at the halls of learning, curious, wistful and tiptoe for flight.

She stood a moment gazing up at the great masses of brick and stone that made up her college world. The side of the buildings nearest the lodge gate was in shadow and the vines and the dull red of the bricks seemed to hold for her something mysterious and strange. She went slowly up the brick walk, holding in check a sudden longing to turn back, to flee once more to the fields and the little brook that ran gurgling by Boardman's and make a day of it, out in the free world.

T WAS mysterious and wonderful—this college where her name was enrolled: “Flora Bailey, 1920.” But there was something overpowering about it. The great walls that looked so gracious in the fresh morning light had a way of shutting one in, of hampering and binding the movements of freshmen. There were so many things one must and must not do within the gracious walls! Her eye glanced up to a tower of South Parker, high up to a window where silken curtains hung in even folds, and a sigh escaped her lips. One must not make friends with seniors, for instance, except by invitation—and a senior was very high up!

The curtains parted a little. The girl's eyes glanced quickly. A firm hand pushed back the curtains and a figure stood between them looking out on the morning. The lifted head bore a mass of reddish hair gathered carelessly, and the light that fell on the tallest peaks and gables of the college touched it with gold. To the freshman, gazing from her walk, it was as if a goddess, high-enshrined and touched by the rising sun, stood revealed. She gave a gasp of pleasure.

It had been a glorious walk out in the dew and sunrise, and now Annette Osler was gazing from her tower window—not on the girl on the college walk, to be sure, but on the world of wonder.

She looked up adoringly at the figure in the tower of South Parker. And the girl high in the window turned a little and looked down. There was no one in sight—only the quiet light of morning on the campus and the wind rippling shadowy waves in the ivy leaves on brick walls. A little rippling wave seemed to run from the walk to the high tower window, and with a gesture of happiness the girl on the walk turned toward the entrance of Gordon Hall. Her pulses sang as she went, her step danced a little, hurrying up the stairs and along the corridor to her room. She opened the door quickly.

Across the room by the window, her roommate, surrounded by books, was taking notes, dipping in here and there with alert pencil. She looked up in swift surprise. “Why, where have you Oh, how lovely!” Her eye caught the green-and-white blossoms and she sprang up. “Here—I'll get the pitcher!”

She brought a pitcher from the bedroom, and Flora placed the vines in water, standing back to survey them. They trailed down over the window sill and onto the seat below. She touched them with quick fingers. “That will do. We'll arrange them after breakfast.”

ER companion had gone back to her task of scooping up notes with a flying pencil. She suspended it a minute and looked up. “Do you remember Bainnuter?” she asked absently.

“Bainnuter?” repeated Flora. “I don't seem to remember Was he on the Yale team?”

Her roommate stared. Then she chuckled. “He's ancient history, Flora dear! Early Egyptian. I was wondering if Doxey would ask us about him. Do you suppose he will?”

Flora wheeled. She regarded her with startled eyes. “History exam! This morning!” she gasped. “I forgot—oh, I forgot!” She seized her books from the table, hunting out a stub of pencil in haste. “I hate 'em all—everybody that's had any history done about 'em. I hate 'em!” she said savagely.

“Why, I thought you liked history! You did splendidly in the February exam. You're such a clever thing! I wish I were!” She sighed deeply and returned to her scooping and dredging.

HE roommate's name was Aspasia—Aspasia Elton. That was another of the perplexing things about college, living night and day with a girl named Aspasia. It made life topsy-turvy. No one at home had names out of history books.

Aspasia glanced at her casually. “Better cram on Rameses II,” she said kindly. “They say he's dippy on Rameses!”

The room was quiet. No sound came from the corridors or from the rooms above or below.

The two girls turned leaves and crammed notes. Now and then one of them sighed. Sounds began to come from the corridor—hurried feet in slippers, and splashings and calls from the bathrooms, and bits of conversation floating over transoms.

Flora closed her book with a little shrug. She put a pencil carefully in the place. “Doxey gave me warning last week,” she said.

Aspasia looked up. “What a shame!”

“No-o. It's all right. I knew I wasn't doing anything; only I hoped he didn't know. I thought the February exam had fooled him—maybe.”

“Anyway, you don't need to worry. Your February mark will carry you through.”

“Yes; but it won't put me on the team. That's all I care about, all I've ever cared about,” she said slowly.

Aspasia nodded. It was sympathetic and vague. “Well—you can live if you don't make the team. Other folks do.”

“I can't!” said Flora.

Her roommate looked at her reflectively. “It's Annette Osler,” she announced. “Just because she's captain, you want”

Flora's face was scarlet. “I don't care if it is!” she murmured.

“Be a sport, Flora! You can't have a crush on a senior”

“It is not a crush!” said Flora vehemently. “I just want to know Annette because she's the kind of girl I like. And if I get on the team, she'll notice me; she'll have to notice me! There isn't any other way to get to know a senior, is there?” she demanded.

“You're too aspiring,” said Aspasia. She gathered up her books and notes. “Come on to breakfast. There's the bell.”

“I'm not going to breakfast,” said Flora firmly. “I've got to study.”

Her roommate reappeared from the bedroom. “You're a weak, sentimental freshman!” she remarked casually.

“I am not sentimental! I want to know Annette Osler because she's a great, glorious creature! So, there! Let be teasing, Aspasia.”

“'Let be teasing'! I must save that for Professor Goodwin. Funny English! Did you get it from your grandmother, honey? He'll be sure to ask the 'source,' you know.”

“Go along!” said Flora crossly.

HE was left alone, and there was only the sunlight falling on the green-and-white vines in the window and traveling to the scattered books on the table. She looked at them a minute; then her arms dropped to the table with a little gesture of defeat, and her face dropped to her arms....

A bumblebee hummed in the window and went away.

It may have been the blossoms.

She lifted her face and looked at them balefully. If only she had known enough to get up at four o'clock to study instead of going off for that miserable walk! And suddenly the sunrise as it came over Redmond Hill flashed back to her; it brought the song of a bird that trilled softly out of the woods.

Her face seemed to listen to the fluting call. Then it grew thoughtful. If there were some way, some legitimate way, of attracting the attention of a senior! Annette liked the things she liked. Often she watched her setting off alone over the hill that led to the fields. And because she was a freshman she might not hurry after her and say: “Come on for a walk with me!”... And suddenly she looked at it. Why not? Why not go to her, this very morning, lay the ease before her and ask her to go for a walk? Why not?... The history exam might as well be cut; she was bound to flunk anyway! She pushed the books aside with a look of distaste. She would do it—and do it now!

There was a sound in the hall. She picked up her book and opened it swiftly to Rameses II.

The door swung open on Aspasia, one elbow holding careful guard over a glass of milk and two large slices of bread and butter.

Flora sprang up. “You dear!”

Aspasia set the milk on the table and turned, a little breathless. “What do you think? Annette Osler has sprained her ankle! They're taking her up to the infirmary now!”

And Flora looked at her with a foolish, half-startled smile. “Now isn't that a stupid thing to do!” she said slowly. “How long do you suppose she will have to stay in the infirmary?”

“Oh—ages!” said Aspasia carelessly. “A sprained ankle isn't a thing you get over in a day, you know. She'll be there weeks maybe.”

And Flora looked down at Rameses II. “How stupid!” she said to him softly.

It had seemed so simple this morning to go to Annette. And now she might have been a thousand miles away, for any chance there was of getting at her.

HE history examinations came and went in a maze of gloom. She had flunked of course. She did not care particularly about the flunking, but it was embarrassing to meet Professor Dockery on the campus next day; and she made a little skillful detour to evade him—only to see him coming toward her along the path by the elms.

He stopped as she came up and looked down at her consideringly. “You wrote a good paper yesterday; a very good paper indeed!”

“I did!” cried Flora.

“I shall withdraw my opposition to your being on the team,” he said kindly.

Flora gazed at him mutely. “Now isn't that a shame!” she said swiftly. And she hurried on to the fields, leaving him to extract what sense he could from the wail.

She tramped far that afternoon. A new bird lured her on; and she found a curious hummocky nest on the ground, with a breakfast of shining roots spread out before it. She went down on her knees—a field mouse probably—or a mole perhaps. She wished there were someone to share it with—the delicately lined dome that her fingers explored and the shining roots at the door.... Her thoughts traveled rebelliously to the infirmary—“weeks perhaps,” Aspasia said.

And then, as she knelt by the hummocky nest, the idea came to her. She got up from her knees, smiling down on the little brown dome and the breakfast of roots, and nodded to it slowly and happily.

“I'll do it,” she said softly. “I'll do it—right off.”

HEN she came in from her walk she went directly to the library and asked for medical books. The librarian bent a keen, spectacled inquiry on her.

“I want them for fiction purposes,” explained Flora, “'for local color.”

But when the musty books were laid before her, she had a period of depression. She attacked them in a little gust of discouragement, selecting the most modern-looking one with colored plates and diagrams and opening it at random. The charts and plates held her. Next to outdoors could there be anything more fascinating and mysterious than the human body? Why had no one ever told her about these things!

She looked down curiously at her own hand resting on the book. It seemed to her a new hand, one that she had never seen before. The network of blue veins fascinated her; they were little branching trees or the delicate veining of leaves. She had not guessed people were like that, as wonderful as trees!—like trees really, with all those branches of muscles and nerves and veins.

Perhaps they were trees once.

Her mind dreamed on happily. She knew how it felt to be a tree, swaying in the wind, with the rain on your leaves. Perhaps she was a tree once, and grew on a hillside, and the squirrels ran up and down and nibbled at branches. She gave a little chuckling laugh in the silence of the library, and the librarian looked over reprovingly from her platform.

Flora made a gesture of apology and plunged again into her search. But it had changed now from seeking to dallying enjoyment. Why had no one told her? And she read on till the librarian touched her on the shoulder and she looked up, blinking.

“The bell has rung,” said the librarian reprovingly.

“Oh-h!” breathed Flora. “Yes; I want them again, please!” And she hurried off blithely.

It was only as she was making ready for dinner that it occurred to her she had not found what she started out to seek.

But in the evening, in the library again, she came on it. She had almost given up her search and was only looking idly at the oldest of the brown books when her eye fell on “The Curious Case of Prudence Small.”

HE began to read. And as she read her cheeks glowed and her eyes danced. She looked speculatively at the librarian. The librarian was a small woman, and there were only two other girls in the room. Better wait? She shook her head. She would never have the courage if she waited! She opened the book again to “The Curious Case of Prudence Small” and read the details once more—and looked up.

The green-shaded reading lights in the dim room made little ghastly circles about the two girls bending over their books; and the librarian, mounted on her platform, seemed like some priestess of knowledge waiting for mystic rites to begin. Flora fixed her eye on her and stood up. The librarian went on counting out cards. Flora scraped her chair a little on the floor; and then, as no one paid attention, she gave it a shove that upset it with a clatter and brought the spectacled glance full upon her amid a look of annoyance from the girls across the room.

Flora lifted her arms slowly. She gave a long low moan and subsided gently to the floor.

There was a flurry of green-shaded lights, a glimpse of the librarian's startled face; then the sound of running feet, and the two girls were bending over a rigid figure and lifting it from the floor.

Five minutes later, in the consulting room of the infirmary, the college physician, summoned from a comfortable game of whist, bent above the rigid figure.

Flora's eyes rested trustfully on the physician's face. She had recovered consciousness almost as soon as they had deposited her on the infirmary couch. Five minutes the book said; she judged it must be about five minutes—and she opened her eyes and gazed pensively at the perturbed faces that surrounded her.

HE physician dismissed them all with a curt gesture. She brought a basin of water, with a bit of ice tinkling in it, and began to bathe the girl's forehead with swift, sopping strokes.

“I fell,” murmured Flora dreamily.

Doctor Worcester nodded. “You will have a good-sized lump, I'm afraid.” She went on sopping with skillful strokes.

Flora's eyes closed meekly. She felt a little thankful for the bump. She had never seen Doctor Worcester before, near to, and there was something in the face bent above her that made her wonder how “The Curious Case of Prudence Small” would come out. “There!” The doctor put aside the basin. “I don't think it will be discolored now. How do you feel?” She was looking down at her critically.

Flora's face flushed. She recalled hastily how she felt—and stretched out her arms and rubbed them a little. “I feel better,” she said slowly, “only there is a little buzzing in the top of my head, and the soles of my feet are slightly paralyzed, I think.”

She said it neatly and glibly and lay with closed eyes, waiting for what might happen.

The doctor's swift eyes studied the passive countenance. “I think we will keep you here to-night,” she said quietly.

She touched a bell and gave directions to the nurse. Her fingers rested lightly on Flora's wrist. “We will put her in the ward,” she said, “next to Miss Osler.” She started and glanced sharply down at the wrist under her fingers, and then at the girl's placid face.

She held the wrist a minute and dropped it slowly, her eyes on the face. “I shall look in again before I go to bed. She may need a quieting draft to make her sleep.”

ROM her desk on her platform, the librarian peered over at the doctor, who was standing looking down the green-shaded, quiet room.

“Tell me just what happened,” said the doctor briskly.

And while the librarian recounted the meager details of the story, the doctor's thoughtful face surveyed the vacant room and the table where the brown books lay.

“It might have been studying too soon after eating—don't you think?” inquired the librarian helpfully.

“I don't think anything,” said the doctor. “I'm puzzled.” She walked across to the table and picked up one of the books. “What was she reading?” she asked.

The librarian flushed. “She said she wanted them for fiction purposes; 'English A,' I suppose, don't you?”

But the physician did not reply. She was looking at a page that had fallen open in her hand, perhaps because an energetic elbow had held it pressed back for half an hour. “The patient said, on inquiry, that her head still buzzed a little, and the soles of her feet were slightly paralyzed.”

She shut the book with a laugh. “I'll take this along with me. No, I don't think it's serious—a case of nerves maybe.”

Her face wore a thoughtful look as she gave directions to the night nurse in the infirmary and looked over charts. She did not go to the ward, and she left no directions for a sleeping draft for the new patient.

The nurse wondered afterward if the doctor could have forgotten. But there was no sign of restlessness in the ward when she went in a little later. The new patient was asleep. There was only one other patient in the ward, a senior who had sprained her ankle a few days ago. She had been asleep when the new patient was brought in. The nurse stepped very softly and passed out of the shaded ward, drawing the door to behind her.

Flora opened her eyes. Through the chink of door a light burned dimly. And through the open window beside her the moonlight streamed in. The infirmary was at the top of the building, and she could look down on the sleeping world and off at the great clouds drifting and swinging against a blue-black sky. She turned her head a little. The senior was asleep, one hand tucked under her cheek, the reddish hair gathered into a quaint cap; the moonlight, touching the quiet face, made it seem like a child's. Flora gazed with devoted, happy eyes. The little pricks of conscience that had stirred in her under the doctor's inquiring gaze subsided. She felt happy and at home for the first time in her college life.

Something flew across the window, shutting out the moon, with great flapping wings. She turned quickly; a bat maybe—no, too large for a bat!... The doctor's keen eyes flitted before her, and she sighed a little and moved restlessly and caught a glimpse of her hand lying on the coverlet. How pale it was in the moonlight! She lifted it curiously and gazed at the delicate strangeness of it—all the little veins and bones and tissues. They were made of moonlight! Charts and diagrams floated before her—filmy lungs, delicate branching nerves, all the mysterious network of wonder.

Then her mind flashed to the mole's nest and shining roots. And she gazed again at the pillowed head in its cap. To-morrow she would tell Annette! To-morrow—and a whole week to come! She was not sentimental! She only wanted to know Annette—and take long walks—with Annette. Her eyelids drooped a little. She tried to prop them open, to gaze at the beloved face. She wanted to show Annette the mole's nest and the breakfast—of—roots.... And she trailed away into a dream world, carrying the mole's nest and the little roots with her far down into her sleep....

HEN she opened her eyes they were gazing straight into a pair of gray ones framed in a curious cap. The gray eyes smiled.

“Hello!” said the senior. “Did you drift in in the night?”

And Flora smiled back shyly. No need to talk or make advances now. There would be a week—a whole week

The senior sat up and reached for a purple robe that hung at the head of the bed and drew it about her. It was a gorgeous robe with tracings of gold running over it; and, as she gathered it about her shoulders, a lock of the reddish hair escaped from her cap and fell across it. She made a royal picture for watching eyes.

She tucked in the escaped lock with half-apologetic fingers. “Stupid, to wear a cap! But my hair tangles so!”

“I like it,” said Flora promptly. “I think it looks—quaint!”

“Thank you!” said the senior. She turned a smiling glance. A little look of surprise touched it. “Why, you're the wood nymph—green and white!” she exclaimed. “I saw you the other morning, didn't I, coming in, before breakfast!”

“I'd been for a walk,” said Flora.

“You were a little bit of all outdoors!” said the senior laughing. She stretched her arms in a restful gesture and looked about the sun-filled room. “Glorious day, isn't it? Perfect—for the game!” She glanced at Flora kindly. 'Too bad you'll miss it. Are you in for long?”

“I don't know,” said Flora happily. “They haven't found out yet what's the matter with me.” She stopped short.

The senior had thrown back the covers and was sitting on the edge of the bed, gathering her robe about her.

Flora's startled gaze held her. “You'll hurt your foot!”

“My foot?” She glanced down at it and thrust it into a purple slipper by the bed, and stood upright—on both feet. “I didn't hurt it at all—not really. But they thought I'd better be careful. Rest for a day or two—on account of the game. Too bad you can't come!”

HE had knotted her girdle about her and was moving toward the door with vigorous stride.

“Oh—ah!” gasped Flora. She waved her hands in a helpless gesture.

The senior glanced back. “Yes?” she said.

“Did you—did you ever happen to see—a mole's nest?” asked Flora. It came in a little jerk, almost a cry of pain.

“A mole's—nest?” The senior paused doubtfully. “I don't think so. It sounds interesting!” But there was a laughing note in the voice that brought a quick flush to the freshman face.

“It might have been a field mouse,” said Flora weakly.

The senior's eyes were laughing now and she nodded kindly. “I hope you won't have to stay long. But they're awfully good to you here—take the best care of you!” And she nodded again and was gone.

And Flora gazed for a moment where the purple cloud of glory had been. It vanished into a misty blur; and she subsided, a bundle of sobs, under the tumbled clothes.

Doctor Worcester appeared in the doorway. The hunched-up figure in the bed by the window was very quiet. Only a damp handkerchief pressed tight over two eyes was visible, and a tumbled mop of hair.

The doctor came in, glancing about the sun-filled room with a look of pleasure. The infirmary ward was always a cheerful place, but never so attractive as when all the beds were vacant—or nearly all. The fewer heads on pillows the better, to Doctor Worcester. She was a tall, motherly woman, with snow-white hair and a little stoop of the broad shoulders that seemed to take something from the keenness of the straight-glancing dark eyes. She wore a white dress of soft material and in her hand she carried a book, an oldish-looking book in brown covers.

HE sat down by the bed and the brown book rested unobtrusively on her lap. For a time there was silence in the room. The doctor's chair creaked a little as she rocked. Outside the window great white clouds were floating; the sunshine in the room had something of the same cloudlike quality of ethereal lightness. Only the huddled figure on the bed was darkened with grief.

“They tell me you didn't eat your breakfast,” said the doctor tranquilly.

“I didn't want any.” It was muffled and subdued.

“It would have been better to eat it,” said the doctor.

“How long do I have to stay here?” asked the voice from the clothes.

The doctor's chair creaked. “Well, it depends. I have to find out first just what's the matter with you: It seems to be—a curious—case.”

The words came slowly, and one small ear emerged above the bedclothes and cocked itself with almost startling alertness.

The doctor gazed at the ear attentively. “If you get on all right, of course you will not have to stay long, not more than a week or so”

There was a movement of the clothes and a muffled sound from beneath.

“But of course if you are foolish and cry”

The handkerchief moved briskly and drew back from one eye, and the eye gazed out at the doctor intelligently. After a moment it dropped and traveled downward and reached—the brown book. “O-h-h!” said Flora. She sat up swiftly and wiped both eyes and gazed at the book.

The doctor's hand rested on it. She nodded quietly. “Wouldn't you better tell me all about it?” she asked.

Flora gazed from the window at the great clouds traveling by. Her short upper lip trembled. “I just read about her—in the book.” She waved her hand. “And so I—I did it.”

“Yes; I'd got as far as that myself,” said the doctor. “But why?”

HE two souls were silent. The doctor had brought up three daughters. There was something about this alert-eyed freshman that touched her interest—and her sense of humor.

“You didn't do it because you wanted to meet me, did you?” The shot was closer than she knew, and Flora cast a quick glance at her.

“I didn't know about you. If I had, I'd have done it maybe.” Her eyes had a look of shy pleasure.

The doctor laughed out. “Pretty good—for a freshman!” She held up the book. “Was it reading this put it into your head?”

“I thought of it first, and then I hunted in the library. I didn't know she was there. I was just looking for a disease—a disease that was quick and easy to have, you know—and I came on Prudence.”

“I thought so,” said the doctor with a look of satisfaction. “Go on, please.”

So, little by little, the story came out, sometimes in bold sweeps and sometimes with Flora's back half turned and her eyes following shyly the great white clouds that went billowing by in the sky. She told it all—even to the catastrophe of the mole's nest, Annette's laughing exit and her own tragic grief.

But a little smile touched the words as she ended. “And that's all,” she said.

“You're not looking at it sentimentally any more,” said the doctor practically.

The face flushed. “I wasn't sentimental,” swiftly; “not exactly sentimental, I guess. Only it's hard sometimes to tell. Your feelings get mixed up so.”

She glanced inquiringly at the doctor, who nodded with amused face. “That is one of the discoveries of science,” she replied.

Flora looked at it. She shook her head. “You're not making fun of me?” she inquired timidly.

“Not in the least!” said the doctor.

“Anyway—that's the way it was. I wanted to know her. She's so beautiful! Don't you think she's beautiful?”

“Yes,” said the doctor gravely.

Flora nodded. “And she likes walks, the way I do. But it was the mole's nest. Maybe it was a field mouse,” she said reflectively. “Anyway, I wanted to show it to her. It was so wonderful!” She sighed softly. “It seemed as if I couldn't stand it not to have her see it. And I was lonely, looking at it all alone! You see it's all mixed up.” She looked appealingly at the doctor.

“I see,” said the doctor.

“The little roots were shiny and laid out for breakfast, as if somebody was coming back in a minute. And it was all still around, and the light in the sky just growing pink. It almost hurts you when things are like that. You can't help being lonely.” She had forgotten the doctor and the infirmary. She seemed to see only the shining roots and the little nest on the ground. “I guess it's because it's like me, inside,” she was saying softly, “the way I am inside—all little branches and bones and shining things.”

The doctor leaned forward to catch the words. Perhaps she asked a question or two. Her steady eyes watched the girl's face as the story went on—the discovery of the charts and diagrams, and the swift response and delight in them.

The doctor sat very quiet. This was the sort of thing one sometimes came on, once in an age! And the child had supposed she was playing a prank—getting to know a senior! And the books she opened were life! The doctor had watched girls come and go, reaching out to choose some nothing. And now and then it seemed to her a gentle hand reached down and touched the chosen nothing and it became shining, a crystal ball holding life in its roundness.

HE doctor was a scientist. To her also the human body was mysterious and wonderful, and often she seemed to graze the edge of truth and catch a glimpse of the unity that binds life in one. She looked at the girl, who had finished speaking and was lying back watching the sky and the clouds moving in it. “Which of your studies do you like best?” she asked gently.

The girl turned. “I hate 'em all,” swiftly. “History's worst, I think—studying about Rameses II and mummy things!” She threw out her hands. “It's wicked—when there's all outdoors and all the beautiful things inside of us!”

She had spread both hands across her chest, as if to cover as much territory as possible; and to the doctor there was something almost tragic in the gesture. Her eyes dwelt on the small figure—the disheveled hair and round eyes and reddened lids.

“You'd like to study biology, I suppose,” she said reflectively.

“Everything 'that's alive,” said Flora promptly.

“Perhaps you'd better have your breakfast now—and keep alive yourself.”

And Flora ate it, propped against the pillows, the brown book lying on the foot of the bed. Now and then she cast a swift, resentful look at the book. But she was hungry and the marmalade was good and it was a wonderful day.

And then she glanced at the window and remembered suddenly the game that she was not to see!

The doctor had returned and was standing by the bed, looking down and smiling. “All through?” she asked serenely.

Flora nodded. “I was pretty hungry,” she acknowledged.

“I thought so.”” The doctor removed the tray.

“How long do I have to stay here?” meekly.

The doctor sat down. She seemed to ignore the question. “I've been thinking about a biology course for you. There isn't any class you could go into just now.”

“No,” Flora sighed. “I didn't suppose there would be. Perhaps I can do it after I'm through being educated.” She said it with a gleam of mischief, and the doctor laughed out.

“How would you like to work in my laboratory, once a week?”

LORA leaned forward, breathless. “To study—with you!”

“Well—study, or call it what you like. I am working there Saturdays, and I generally have a student with me to help and look on. Sometimes she experiments a little herself.”

“Oh!” It was a sigh of pure joy.

“It's usually a senior of course. In fact, I have a senior now.” She was watching the glowing face. “Annette Osler is helping me this year.”

Flora's face flushed; then the joy in it laughed out. “I don't deserve that, do I?” she said softly.

The telephone sounded in the next room and the doctor left her a moment. When she returned she glanced at her with a little smile. “Do you think you are feeling well enough to get up?”

The girl sat up with a swift glance of hope.

The doctor nodded. “It's from the team. Someone has given out; they are calling for the next reserve. I thought of you”—she looked teasingly and dubiously. Then she smiled. “Well, go along! And remember you're to come to me Saturday.”

She went toward the door. She turned and looked back. “I forgot. You are to report at once to the captain—in her room.”

Ten minutes later, in the morning of clouds and wind, a small figure in knickerbockers and blouse, with hair in a braid down its back, was scudding along the walk that led to South Parker. The braid of hair was tied with green-and-white ribbon and it swung gayly behind as the figure scudded on.

title: The Cat and the King (Lee)


text: Talk:The Cat and the King (Lee)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:The Cat and the King (Lee)


text:
Scribner's Magazine/Volume 31/Number 6/The Day Shall Declare It

HE woman seated in the light of the low, arched window was absorbed in the piece of linen stretched on a frame before her. As her fingers hovered over the brilliant surface, her eyes glowed with a look of satisfaction and lighted the face, making it almost handsome. It was a round, smooth face, untouched by wrinkles, with light-blue eyes—very near the surface—and thin, curved lips.

She leaned back in her chair to survey her work, and her lips took on a deeper curve. Then they parted slightly, and her face, with a look of listening, moved toward the door.

The young man who entered nodded carelessly as he threw back the blue-gray cloak that hung about his shoulders and advanced into the room.

She regarded the action coldly. "I have been waiting, Albrecht." She spoke the words slowly. "Where have you been?"

"I see." He untied the silken strings of the cloak and tossed it from him. "I met Pirkheimer—we got to talking."

The thin lips closed significantly. She made no comment.

The young man crossed the room and knelt before a stack of canvases by the wall, turning them one by one to the light. His full lips puckered in a half-whistle, and his eyes had a dreamy look.

The woman had returned to her work, drawing in the threads with swift touch.

As the man rose to his feet her eyes flashed a look at the canvas in his hand. They fell again on her work, and her face ignored him.

He placed the canvas on an easel and stood back to survey it. His lips whistled softly. He rummaged again for brushes and palette, and mixed one or two colors on the edge of the palette. A look of deep happiness filled his absorbed face.

She lifted a pair of scissors and snipped a thread with decisive click. "Are you going on with the portrait?" she asked. The tone was clear and even, and held no trace of resentment.

He looked up absently. "Not to-day," he said. "Not to-day." His gaze returned to the easel.

The thin lips drew to a line. They did not speak. She took off her thimble and laid it in its velvet sheath. She gathered up the scattered skeins of linen and silk, straightening each with a little pull, and laid them in the case. She stabbed a needle into the tiny cushion and dropped the scissors into their pocket. Then she rose deliberately, her chair scraping the polished boards as she pushed it back from the frame.

He looked up, a half-frown between the unseeing eyes.

She lifted the embroidery-frame from its rest and turned toward the door. "I have other work to do if I am not to pose for you," she said, quietly.

He made no reply.

Half way to the door she paused, looking back. "Herr Mündler was here while you were out. We owe him twenty-five guldens. It was due the fifth." She spoke the words crisply. Her face gave no sign of emotion.

He nodded indifferently. "I know. I shall see him." The soft whistle was resumed.

"There is a note from the Rath, refusing you the pension again." She drew a paper from the work-box in her hand and held it toward him.

He turned half about in his chair. "Don't worry, Agnes," he said. The tone was pleading. He did not look at the paper or offer to take it. His eyes returned to the easel. A gentle light filled them.

She dropped the paper into the box, a smile on her lips, and moved toward the easel. She stood for a moment, looking from the pictured face of the Christ to the glowing face above it. Then she turned again to the door. "It's very convenient to be your own model," she said, with a laugh. The door clicked behind her.

He sat motionless, the grave, earnest eyes looking into the eyes of the picture. Now and then he stirred vaguely. But he did not lift his hand or touch the brushes beside it. Gazing at each other, in the fading light of the low window, the two faces were curiously alike. There was the same delicate modelling of lines, the same breadth between the eyes, the long, flowing locks, the full, sensitive lips, and in the eyes the same look of deep melancholy—touched with a subtle, changing, human smile that drew the beholder. It disarmed criticism and provoked it. Except for the halo of mocking and piercing thorns, the living face might have been the pictured one below it. The look of suffering in one was shadowed in the other.

There was a light tap at the door and it flew open.

The painter looked up quickly. The tense, earnest gaze broke into a sunny smile. "Pirkheimer!" He sprang to his feet. "What now?"

The other man came leisurely across the room, his eyes on the easel. He nodded toward it approvingly.

"Wanted to see it," he said. His eyes studied the picture. "I got to thinking it over after you left me—I was afraid you might touch it up and spoil it—I want it just as it is." His eyes sought his companion's face.

The painter shook his head. "I don't know—not yet—you must leave it with me. It's yours. You shall have it—when it's done."

"It's done now," said the other, brusquely. "Here—sign." He picked up a brush and, dipping it into a soft color on the palette, handed it to the painter.

He took it doubtfully between his fingers, his eyes on the face. Slowly his hand moved toward the canvas. It traced rapidly, below the flowing locks, a huge, uncouth A; then, more slowly, within the sprawling legs of the A, a shadowy D; and finally, at the top, above them both, in tiny figures, a date—1503. The brush dropped from his fingers and he stepped back with a little sigh.

His companion reached out his hand. "That's all right," he said, "I'll take it."

The artist interposed a hand. "Not yet," he said.

"It's mine," replied the other. "You said it." "Yes, I said it—not yet."

The other yielded with a satisfied smile. His hand strayed to the purse hanging at his side. "What's to pay?—Tell me."

The artist shook his head. "I would not sell it—not even to you," he said. His eyes were on the canvas.

"But it's mine!"

"It's yours—for friendship's sake."

The young man nodded contentedly. Then a thought struck across his face. "You'll tell Agnes that?" he said, quickly.

"Ay, I'll tell Agnes—that it's yours. But not what you paid for it," added the painter, thoughtfully.

"No, no, don't tell her that." The young man spoke quickly. His tone was half-jesting, half-earnest. He stood looking at the two faces, glancing from one to the other with a look of baffled resentment. "A living shame!" he muttered under his breath. The artist looked up quickly. "What?"

"Nothing." The young man moved vaguely about the room. "I wish to God, Dürer, you had a free hand!" he broke out.

The artist glanced inquiry. He held up his hand, moving the supple fingers with a little gesture of pride. "Isn't it?" he demanded, smiling.

The young man shook his head. His round face retained its look of dissent. "Marriage—for a man like you! Two hundred florins—for dowry!" He laughed scornfully.

His companion's face flushed. A swift look came into the eyes.

The other held out a deprecating hand. "I didn't mean it," he said. "Don't be angry."

The flush faded. The artist turned to the easel, taking up a brush, as if to seek in work a vent for his disturbed thought. "You'll spoil it! " said Pirkheimer, quickly.

"I shall finish it," replied Dürer, without looking up.

The other moved restlessly about. "Well" (he gave a quick sigh), "I must go. Good-by, Dürer." He came and stood by the easel, holding out his hand.

The artist rose, the warm smile on his lips bathing his face. "Good-by, my friend." He held out his hand frankly.

Pirkheimer caught it in his. "We're friends?" he said.

"Always."

"And you will never want if I can help you."

"Never!" The tone was hearty and proud.

Pirkheimer turned away with a look of contentment. "I shall hold you to it," he said. "It is a promise."

"I shall hold you to it," laughed Dürer.

When the door had closed, he stood looking down at the picture. He moved once or twice across the room. Then he stopped before a little brazier, looking at it hesitatingly. He bent over and lighted the coals in the basin. He blew them with a tiny bellows till they glowed. Then he placed a pan above them and threw into it lumps of brownish stuff. When the mixture was melted, he carried it across to the easel and dipped a large brush into it thoughtfully. He drew it across the canvas. The track behind it glowed and deepened in the dim light. Slowly the picture mellowed under it. A look of sweet satisfaction hovered about the artist's lips as he worked. The liquid in the pan lessened and his brush moved more slowly. The mixture had deepened in tint and thickened. Wherever the brush rested a deep, luminous color sprang to meet it. It moved swiftly across the monogram—and paused. The artist peered forward uncertainly. The letters lay erased in the dim light. With another stroke of the brush—and another—they were gone forever.

The smile of satisfaction deepened on his lips. It was not conceit, nor humility, nor pride. One could not have named the sweetness that hovered in it—hauntingly.

He laid down the brush with a quick breath and sat gazing at the picture. It returned the gentle, inevitable look. He raised a finger to the portrait, speaking softly. "It is Albrecht Dürer—his work," he said under his breath. "None but a fool can mistake it. It shall speak for him forever."

a quarter of a century the picture had rested, face to the wall, on the floor of the small, dark studio. Pirkheimer had demanded his treasure—sometimes with jests and sometimes with threats. But the picture had remained unmoved against the wall.

Journeys to Italy and to the Netherlands had intervened. Pirkheimer's velvet purse had been dipped into again and again. Commissions without number had been executed for him. Rings and stones and tapestries—carvings and stag-antlers, and cups and silks and velvet—till the Pirkheimer mansion glowed with color from the South and delicate workmanship from the North. Other pictures from Dürer's brush adorned its walls—grotesque monks and gentle Virgins. But the Face bided its time against the wall.

To-day—for the first time in twenty-five years—the Face of the Christ was turned to the light. The hand that drew it from its place had not the supple fingers of the painter. Those fingers, stiffened and white, lay upon a quiet breast—outside the city wall.

The funeral cortège had trotted briskly back, and Agnes Dürer had come directly to the studio, with its low, arched window, to take account of her possessions. It was all hers—the money the artist had toiled to leave her, the work that had shortened life, and the thousand Rhenish guldens in the hands of the most worthy Rath, the pictures and copperplates, the books he had written and the quaint curios he had loved—they were all hers, except, perhaps, the copperplates for Andreas. Her level glance swept them as she crossed to the canvas against the wall and lifted it to a place on the easel. She had often begged him to sell the picture. It was large and would bring a good price. Her eyes surveyed it with satisfaction. A look of dismay crossed the smooth face. She leaned forward and searched the picture eagerly. The dismay deepened to anger. He had neglected to sign it! She knew well the value of the tiny monogram that marked the canvases about her. A sound clicked in her throat. She reached out her white hand to a brush on the bench beside her. There would be no wrong done. It was Albrecht's work—his best work. Her eyes studied the modelling of the delicate, strong face—the Christ face—Albrecht's face—at thirty-three—had he looked like that? She stared at it vaguely. She moved away, looking about her for a bit of color. She found it and came again to the easel. She reached out her hand for the brush. A slip of paper tucked beneath the canvas caught her eye. She drew it out slowly, unfolding it with curious fingers. "This picture of the Christ is the sole property of my dear and honored friend, the Herr Willibald Pirkheimer. I have given it to him and his heirs to have and to hold forever. Signed by me, this day, June 8, 1503, in my home in Nürnberg, 15 Zisselstrasse, Albrecht Dürer."

She crushed the paper in firm fingers. A door had opened behind her. The discreet servant, in mourning garments, with downcast, reddened eyes, waited. "His Highness the Herr Pirkheimer is below, my lady."

For a moment she hesitated. Then her fingers opened on the bit of paper. It fluttered to the table and lay full in sight. She looked at it with her thin smile.

"Ask Herr Pirkheimer to ascend to the studio. I shall receive him here," she said.

He entered facing the easel. With an exclamation he sprang forward. He laid a hand on the canvas. The small eyes blinked at her.

She returned the look coldly.

"It is mine!" he said.

She inclined her head, with a stately gesture, to the open paper on the table beside her.

He seized it in trembling fingers. He shook it toward her. "It is mine. You see—it is mine!"

"It is yours, Herr Pirkheimer." She spoke with level coolness. "I had read the paper." With a grunt of satisfaction, he turned again to the canvas. A smothered oath broke from his lips. He leaned forward, incredulous. His round eyes, bulging and blue, searched every corner. They fell on the wet brush and bit of color. He turned on her fiercely. "Jezebel!" he hissed, "you have painted it out. I saw him sign it—years ago—twenty-five years!"

She smiled serenely. "It may have been some other one," she said sweetly. Her glance took in the scattered canvases.

He shook his head savagely. "I will have no other," he shouted; "I should know it in a thousand."

"Very well." Her voice was as tranquil as her face. "Shall I have it sent to the house of the honored Herr Pirkheimer?"

He glared at her. "I take it with me," he said. "I do not trust it out of sight."

She bowed in acquiescence. Standing in her widow's garments, with downcast eyes and gentle resignation, she waited his withdrawal.

He eyed her curiously. The years had touched her lightly. There were the same plump features, the same surface eyes, and light, abundant bands of hair. He heaved a round sigh. He thought of the worn face outside the city wall. He gathered the canvas under his arm, glaring about the low room. "There was a pair of antlers," he muttered. "They might go in my collection. You will want to sell them."

The downcast eyes did not leave the floor. "They are sold," she said, "to Herr Umstätter." A little smile played about the thin lips.

"Sold! Already!" The round eyes bulged at her. "My God!" he shouted fiercely, "you would sell his very soul, if he had left it where you could!"

She raised the blue eyes and regarded him calmly. "The estate is without condition," she said.

He groaned as he backed toward the door. The canvas was hugged under his arm. At the door he paused, looking back over the room. His small eyes winked fast, and the loose mouth trembled.

"He was a great man, Agnes," he said, gently. "We must keep it clean—the name of Dürer."

She looked up with a little gesture of dismissal. "It is I who bear the name," she said, coldly.

When he was gone she glanced about the room. She went over to a pile of canvases and turned them rapidly to the light. Each one that bore the significant monogram she set aside with a look of possession. She came at last to the one she was searching. It was a small canvas—a Sodom and Gomorrah. She studied the details slowly. It was not signed. She gave a little breath of satisfaction, and took up the brush from the bench. She remembered well the day Albrecht brought it home, and his childish delight in it. It was one of Joachim Patenir's. Albrecht had given a Christ head of his own in exchange for it. The brush in her fingers trembled a little. It inserted the wide-spreading A beneath Lot's flying legs, and overtraced it with a delicate D. She paused a moment in thought. Then she raised her head and painted in, with swift, decisive strokes, high up in one corner of the picture, a date. It was a safe date—1511—the year he painted his Holy Trinity. There would be no one to question it.

She sat back, looking her satisfaction.

Seventy-five guldens to account. It atoned a little for the loss of the Christ.

large drawing-room was vacant. The blinds had been drawn to shut out the glare, and a soft coolness filled the room. In the dim light of half-opened shutters the massive furniture loomed large and dark, and from the wall huge paintings looked down mistily. Gilt frames gleamed vaguely in the cool gloom. Above the fireplace hung a large canvas, and out of its depths sombre, waiting eyes looked down upon the vacant room.

The door opened. An old woman had entered. She held in her hand a stout cane. She walked stiffly across to the window and threw back a shutter. The window opened into the soft greenness of a Munich garden. She stood for a minute looking into it. Then she came over to the fireplace and looked up to the pictured face. Her head nodded slowly.

"It must be," she muttered, "it must be. No one else could have done it. But 400 years!"—she sighed softly. "Who can tell?"

Her glance wandered with a dissatisfied air to the other canvasses. "I would give them all—all of them—twice over—to know—" She spoke under her breath as she hobbled stiffly to a huge chair.

The door swung softly back and forth behind a young girl who had entered. She came in lightly, looking down at a packet of papers in her hand.

The old woman started forward. "What have ye found?" she demanded. She was leaning on the stout cane. She peered out of her cavernous eyes.

The girl crossed to the window and seated herself in the green light. Shadows of a climbing vine fell on her hair and shoulders as she bent over the papers in her hand. She opened one of them and ran her eye over it before she spoke.

"They were in the North room," she said, slowly. "In the big escritoire—that big, clumsy one—I've looked there before, but I never found them. I've been trying all day to make them out."

"What are they?" demanded the old woman.

"Papers, grandmamma," returned the girl, absently, "—letters and a sort of journal." Her eyes were on the closely written page.

"Read it," said the old woman, sharply.

"I can't read it, grandmamma." She shook back the soft curls with a little sigh. "It's queer and old, and funny—some of the words. And the writing is blurred and yellow.—Look." She held up the open sheet.

The keen old eyes darted at it. "Work on it," she said, brusquely.

"I have, grandmamma."

"Well—what did ye find?"

"It's a man—Will—Willi—" She turned to the bottom of the last page. "Willibald! That's it." She laughed softly. "Willibald Pirkheimer. Who was he?" she asked.

"One of your ancestors." The old mouth waited grimly.

"One of mamma's?"

"Your father's."

"He must have been a nice man," said the girl slowly. "But some of it is rather—queer."

The old woman leaned forward with a quick gesture. She straightened herself. "Nonsense!" she muttered. "Read it," she said aloud.

"This is written to Albrecht Dürer," said the girl, studying it, "in Italy."

The old woman reached out a knotted hand. "Give it to me," she said.

The girl came across and laid it in her hand. The knotted fingers smoothed it. The old eyes were on the picture above the mantel. "Will it tell?" she muttered.

"There are others, grandmamma." The girl held up the packet in her hand.

"What have ye made out?" The old hand closed upon them.

"He was Dürer's friend," said the girl. "There are letters to him—five or six. And he tells about a picture—in the journal—a picture Albrecht Dürer gave to him." She glanced down at the wrinkled, working face. "It was unsigned grandmamma—and it was the head of the Saviour."

The old woman's throat moved loosely. Her hands grasped the stout cane.

With a half-sigh, she rose to her feet and tottered across the room. "Fool—fool—" she muttered, looking up to the mystical, waiting face. "To leave no mark—no sign—but that!" She shook the yellow papers in her hand.

A question shot into the old eyes. She held out the papers.

"What was it dated, Marie?—that place in the journal—look and see."

The girl took the papers and moved again to the window? She opened one and smoothed it thoughtfully, running her eye along the page. She shook her head slowly, "There is no date, grandmamma," she said. "But it must be after Dürer's death. He speaks of Frau Dürer—" A smile shaded her lips. "—He doesn't like her very well, I think. When did Dürer die, grandmamma?" She looked up from the paper.

"April 6, 1528," said the old woman, promptly.

The girl's eyes grew round and misty. "Four hundred years ago—almost," she murmured, softly. She looked down, a little awed, at the paper in her hand.

"It is very old," she said.

The old woman nodded sharply. Her eyes were on the papers. "Take good care of them," she croaked; "they may tell it to us yet."

She straightened her bent figure and glanced toward the door.

A wooden butler was bowing himself to the floor. "The Herr Doctor Professor Polonius Holtzenschuer," he announced, grandly.

A dapper young man with trim mustaches and spotless boots advanced into the room.

The girl by the window swayed a breath. The clear color had mounted in her cheek.

The old woman waited, immovable. Her hands were clasped above the stout cane and her bead-like eyes surveyed the advancing figure.

At two yards distance it paused. The heels came together with a swift click. He bowed in military salute.

The old woman achieved a stiff courtesy and waited. The dim eyes peered at him shrewdly.

"I have the honor to pay my respects to the Baroness von Herkomer," said the young man, with deep politeness.

The Baroness assented gruffly. She seated herself on a large divan, facing the picture, and motioned with her knotted hand to the seat beside her.

The young man accepted it deferentially. His eyes were on a bowed head, framed in shadows and leaves across the room.

"I trust the Fräulein Marie is well?" he said, promptly.

"Marie"

The girl started vaguely.

"Come and greet the Herr Doctor Holtzenschuer."

She rose lightly from her place and came across the room. A soft curl, blown by the wind, drifted across her flushes as she came.

The young man sprang to his feet. His heels clicked again as he bent low before her.

She descended in a shy courtesy and glanced inquiringly at her grandmother.

The old woman nodded curtly. "Go on with your papers," she said.

The girl turned again to the green window. Her head bowed itself above the papers.

The young man's eyes followed them. He turned to the old woman beside him. "Is it something about—the picture?" he asked.

She nodded sharply. "Private papers of Willibald Pirkheimer," she said, "ancestor of the von Herkomers—sixteenth century. He was a friend of Durer's." Her lips closed crisply on the words.

He looked at her, a smile under the trim mustaches. "You hope they will furnish a clew?" he asked, tolerantly.

She made no reply. Her wrinkled face was raised to the picture.

"You have one Dürer." He motioned toward a small canvas—"Is it not enough?"

Her eyes turned to it and flashed in disdain. "The Sodom and Gomorrah!" She spoke scornfully. "Not so much as a copy!"

"It is signed."

She glanced at it again. There was shrewd intolerance in the old eyes. "Do you think I cannot tell?" she said, grimly. "I know the work of Albrecht Dürer, length and breadth, line for line. You say he painted that!" She pointed a swift finger at the picture across the room. "Have ye looked at Lot's legs?" Her laugh cackled softly.

The young man smiled under his mustaches.

The Baroness had turned again to the picture over the fireplace. "But that—" she murmured softly, "It is signed in every line—in the eyes, in the painting of the hair, in the sweep from brow to chin. It will yet be found," she said under her breath. "It shall be found."

He looked at her, smiling. Then he raised his eyes politely to the picture. A slow look formed behind the smile. He half started, gazing intently at the deep, painted canvas. His glance strayed for a second to the green window, and back again to the picture.

The old Baroness roused herself with a sigh. She turned toward him. "Your dissertation has brought you honor, they tell me," she said, looking at him critically.

He acknowledged the remark with a bow. "It is nothing," he said, indifferently. "Only a step toward molecules and atoms."

The Baroness smiled grimly. "I don't understand chemical jargon," she said, in a dry tone. "I understand you are going to be famous."

The young man bowed again, absently. He glanced casually at the picture above the fireplace. "What would you give to know"—he nodded toward it—"that it is a genuine Dürer?"

The shrewd eyes darted at him.

The clean-cut face was compact and expressionless.

"Give? I would give"—her eye swept the apartment, with its wealth of canvas and gilt and tapestry—"I would give all, everything in the room"—she raised a knotted hand toward the picture—"to know that Albrecht Dürer's monogram belongs there." The pointing finger trembled a little.

He looked at it reflectively. Then his glance travelled about the great room. "Everything in this room," he said, slowly. "That means—" He paused, glancing toward the window.

The young girl had left her seat. The papers had dropped to the floor. She was leaning from the casement to pick a white rose that swayed and nodded, out of reach.

He waited a breath. Her fingers closed on it and she sank back in her chair, smiling, the rose against her cheek.

The eyes watching her glowed softly. "Everything in this room—" He spoke very low. "The One with the rose?"

The old face turned to him with a look. The heavy jaw dropped and forgot to close. The keen eyes scanned his face. The jaws came together with a snap. She nodded to him shrewdly.

The young man rose to his feet. The cynical smile had left his face. It was intent and earnest. He looked up for a moment to the picture, and then down at the wrinkled, eager face. "To-morrow, at this time, you shall know," he said, gravely.

The old eyes followed him, half in doubt, half in hope. They pierced the heavy door as it swung shut behind him.

The stiff, dapper figure had crossed the hall. The outer door clanged.

Against the green window, within, the soft curls and gentle, questioning eyes of the Fräulein Marie waited. As the door clanged, a rose was laid lightly to her lips and dropped softly into the greenness below.

a quarter to ten the next morning a closed carriage drew up before the heavy gate. A dapper figure pushed open the door and leaped out. It entered the big gateway, crossed a green garden, and, the next moment, was ushered into the presence of the Baroness von Herkomer.

She stood beneath the picture, her eyebrows bent, her lips drawn, and her hands resting on the stout cane.

"Will you come with me?" he asked, deferentially.

"Where to?"

He hesitated. "You will see. I cannot tell you—now. But I need you—with the picture." He motioned toward it.

She eyed him grimly for a second. Then she touched a bell.

The wooden butler appeared. "Send Wilhelm," she commanded.

Half an hour later the Herr Doctor Holtzenschuer was handing a bundled figure into the closed carriage that stood before the gate. A huge, oblong package rested against a lamp-post beside him, and near it stood the Fräulein Marie, rosy and shy. The young man turned to her with, a swift gesture.

"Come," he said.

He placed her beside her grandmother, and watched carefully while the heavy parcel was lifted to the top of the carriage. With an injunction to the driver for its safety, he turned to spring into the carriage.

The voice of the Baroness, from muffled folds, arrested him.

"You will ride outside with the picture," it said. "I do not trust it to a driver."

With a bow he slammed to the carriage-door and mounted the box. In another minute the Herr Doctor Professor Holtzenschuer was driving rapidly through the streets of Munich, on the outside of a common hack, a clumsy parcel balanced awkwardly on his stiff shoulders.

From the windows below, on either side, a face looked out upon the flying streets—a fairy with gentle eyes and a crone with toothless smile.

"The Pinakotek!" grumbled the old woman. "Does he think anyone at the Pinakothek knows more of Albrecht Dürer than Henriette von Herkomer?" She sniffed a little and drew her folds about her.

Past the Old Pinakothek rolled the flying carriage—on past the New Pinakothek. An old face peered out upon the marble walls, wistful and suspicious. A mass of buildings loomed in view.

"The university," she muttered under her breath. "Some upstart herr professor to tell me of Albrecht Dürer! Fool—fool!" She croaked softly in her throat. "The Herr Doctor is a learned man, grandmamma—and a gentleman," said a soft voice beside her.

"A gentleman can be a fool," returned the old woman, tartly. "What building is this?"

The carriage had stopped before a low, square doorway.

"It is the chemistry laboratory, grandmamma," said the girl, timidly.

The old woman leaned forward, gray with rage, pulling at the closed door. "Chemistry lab—" Her breath came in pants. "He will—destroy—burn—melt it!" Four men lifted down the huge parcel from the carriage and turned toward the stone door. "Stop!" she gestured wildly to them.

The door flew open. The young scientist stood before her, bowing and smiling. She shook a knotted finger at him. "Stop those men!" she cried, sternly.

At a gesture the men waited. She descended from the carriage, shaking and suspicious, her cane tapping the pavement before her. The Fräulein Marie leaped lightly down after her. Her hand had rested for a moment on the young man's sleeve. A white rose trembled in the fingers. His face glowed.

"Is your Highness ready?" he asked. He had moved to the old woman's side.

She was standing, one hand on the wrapped parcel, the other on her stout cane, peering suspiciously ahead.

"Is your Highness ready?" he repeated.

"Go on," she said, briefly.

Four men were in the hall when they entered—the director of the Old Pinakothek, the artist Adrian Kauffmann, the president of the university, and a young man with a scared, helpful face, who proved to be a laboratory assistant.

"They are your witnesses," murmured the young man in her ear.

She greeted them stiffly, her eyes on the precious parcel. Swiftly the wrappings were undone, and the picture lifted to a huge easel across the room. The light fell full upon it.

The witnesses moved forward in a body, silent. The old face watching them relaxed. She smiled grimly.

"Is it a Dürer?" she demanded. She was standing behind them.

They started, looking at her doubtfully. The artist shrugged his shoulders. He stepped back a little. The director shook his head with a sigh. "Who can tell?" he said softly. "The marks"

The Baroness's eyes glowed dangerously. "I did not suppose you could tell," she said, curtly.

The young scientist interposed. "It is a case for science," he said, quickly. "You shall see—the Roentgen rays will tell. The shutters—Berthold."

The assistant closed them, one by one, the heavy wooden shutters. A last block of light rested on the shadowy picture. A last shutter swung into place. They waited—in darkness. Someone breathed quickly, with soft, panting breath. Slowly a light emerged through the dark. The great picture gathered to itself shape, and glowed. Light pierced it till it shone with strokes of brushes. Deeply and slowly in the bluish Patina, at the edge of the flowing locks, on the shoulder of the Christ, a glimmer of shadow traced itself, faintly and unmistakably.

Confused murmurs ran through the darkness—the voice of the director—a woman's breath.

"Ready, Berthold." It was the voice of the Herr Doctor. There was a little hiss, a blinding flash of light, the click of a camera, and blackness again.

A shutter flew open.

In the square of light an old woman groped toward the picture. Her knotted hands were lifted to it.

Close at hand, a camera tucked under his arm, the laboratory assistant stood—on his round, practical face the happy look of successful experiment.

A little distance away the Herr Doctor Professor moved quickly. The one with the rose looked up.

High above them all—on the great easel, struck by a ray of light from the shutter—the Dürer face of Sorrow—out of its four hundred years—looked forth and waited in the modern world.


text: Talk:Scribner's Magazine/Volume 31/Number 6/The Day Shall Declare It


text:
Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 2.djvu/215

 thing in my hand, "this morsel of dried meat is all that remains for us three."

My uncle gazed at me as if he could not fully appreciate the meaning of my words. The blow seemed to stun him by its severity. I allowed him to reflect for some moments.

"Well," said I, after a short pause, what do you think now? Is there any chance of our escaping from our horrible subterranean dangers? Are we not doomed to perish in the great hollows of the Center of the Earth?"

But my pertinent questions brought no answer. My uncle either heard me not, or appeared not to do so. And in this way a whole hour passed. Neither of us cared to speak. For myself, I began to feel the most fearful and devouring hunger. My companions, doubtless, felt the same horrible tortures, but neither of them would touch the wretched morsel of meat that remained. It lay there a last remnant of all our great preparations for the mad and senseless journey!

I looked back, with wonderment, to my own folly. Fully was I aware that, despite his enthusiasm, and the ever-to-be-hated scroll of Saknussemm, my uncle should never have started on his perilous voyage. What memories of the happy past, what previsions of the horrible future, now filled my brain!

, prolonged, is temporary madness! The brain is at work without its required food, and the most fantastic notions fill the mind. Hitherto I had never known what hunger realyreally [sic] meant. I was likely to understand it now only too well.

After dreaming for some time, and thinking of this and other matters, I once more looked around me. We were still ascending with fearful rapidity. Every now and then the air appeared to check our respiration as it does that of aëronauts when the ascension of the balloon is too rapid. But if they feel a degree of cold in proportion to the elevation they attain in the atmosphere, we experienced quite a


text:
Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/369

Rh ance to the Swedish nation. The greatest of all is (1707-78), who already in his twenty-fourth year established the celebrated sexual system, whereby the chaos of the botanical world was reduced to order, and a fruitful scientific study of it was made possible. The results of his investigations, which made his name famous throughout Europe and gave him the title of "the king of botanists," were chiefly recorded in Latin. But a number of short dissertations, among which are several addresses delivered before the Academy of Sciences, of which he was one of the founders in 1739 and its first president, are all written in Swedish and show that he was a thorough master of his native tongue, though his style is rather natural and spontaneous than acquired by study. His works show a versatility and an interest in all that is worth knowing, a clearness and splendor of style, which make the perusal of them a great enjoyment. One of the most excellent of his dissertations is "Om märkvärdigheter uti insekterna" (on peculiarities of insects). The zoölogist (died 1778) acquired a great reputation by a work written in French on insects. The physicist (1735-84) distinguished himself by his "Fysisk beskrifning öfver jordklotet" (physical description of the globe), which was translated into several languages. (1742-86) was a very eminent chemist.

Among the historians,  (1707-87) is distinguished for thoroughness and research, though he is not equal to Dalin in point of style. His great work, "Svea Rikes Historia," though carried down only to the year 1457, is still a valuable work of reference, and his survey of Swedish history down to 1772 was translated into French, and was


text:
Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 2.djvu/216

 contrary effect. The heat began to increase in a most threatening and exceptional manner. I cannot tell exactly the mean, but I think it must have reached 122 degrees of Fahrenheit.

What was the meaning of this extraordinary change in the temperature? As far as we had hitherto gone, facts had proved the theories of Davy and of Lidenbrock to be correct. Until now, all the peculiar conditions of refractory rocks, of electricity of magnetism, had modified the general laws of nature, and had created for us a moderate temperature; for the theory of the central fire, remained, in my eyes, the only explainable one.

Were we, then, going to reach a position in which these phenomena were to be carried out in all their rigor, and in which the heat would reduce the rocks to a state of fusion? Such was my not unnatural fear, and I did not conceal the fact from my uncle. My way of doing so might be cold and heartless, but I could not help it. "If we are not drowned, or smashed into pancakes, and if we do not die of starvation, we have the satisfaction of knowing that we must be burned alive."

My uncle, in presence of this brusque attack, simply shrugged his shoulders, and resumed his reflections—whatever they might be.

An hour passed away, and except that there was a slight increase in the temperature no incident modified the situation. My uncle at last, of his own accord, broke silence. "Well, Henry, my boy," he said, in a cheerful way, "we must make up our minds."

"Make up our minds to what?" I asked, in considerable surprise.

"Well—to something. "We must at whatever risk recruit our physical strength. If we make the fatal mistake of husbanding our little remnant of food, we may probably prolong our wretched existence a few hours—but we shall remain weak to the end."

"Yes," I growled, "to the end. That, however, will not keep us long waiting."

"Well, only let a chance of safety present itself,—only allow that a moment of action be necessary,—where shall we find the means of action if we allow ourselves to be reduced to physical weakness by inanition?"


text: History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North/Part 3/Chapter 4


text:
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 study while the steam was up. Only it cut into my sleep some, and sometimes I would get too drowsy to study. So I had to give up one of my lecture courses, though the instructor finally agreed to let me try to make it up during the Christmas vacation. But I learned how to sleep in a cinder pile or a coal bunker, anyway.” The nephew was interested now. His knife was idle in his hand, his cylinder reposed, forgetting the agony of wood.

“It would take twenty-five dollars, but working overtime as I was, I figured it wouldn’t be any actual cost at all, except the loss of sleep. And a young fellow can stand that if he has to. I was used to work, you know, and it seemed to me that this was just like finding twenty-five dollars.

“I had been working about a month when this fellow came to me and told me that something had happened and that the fraternity would have to initiate right away, and he asked me how much I had earned. I lacked a little of having twenty-five dollars, so he said he would loan me the difference to make it up. So I went to the power house manager and told him I had to have some money to pay a dentist with, and got my pay up to date and gave it to this fellow, and he told me where to be the following night—behind the library at a certain hour. So I did: I was there, like he said.” Fairchild laughed again.

“What'd the bird do?” the nephew asked. “Gyp you?”

“It was cold, that night. Late November, and a cold wind came right out of the north, whistling around that building, among the bare trees. Just a few dead leaves on the trees, making a kind of sad dry sound. We had won a football game that afternoon, and I could hear yelling occasionally, and see lights in the dormitories where the ones that could afford to lived, warm and jolly looking, with the bare trees

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text:
Author:John Lyde Wilson

Works

 * The Code of Honor; or Rules for the Government of Principals and Seconds in Duelling (1858)
 * (see excerpt here: Irish duelling code)

title: Author:John Lyde Wilson


text:
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 swaying and waving across the windows. Still celebrating the game we had won.

“So I walked back and forth, stamping my feet, and after a while I went around the corner of the library where it wasn’t so cold, and I could stick out my head occasionally in case they came looking for me. From this side of the building I could see the hall where the girl students lived. It was all lighted up, as if for a party, and I could see shadows coming and going upon the drawn shades where they were dressing and fixing their hair and all; and pretty soon I heard a crowd coming across the campus and I thought, here they come at last. But they passed on, going toward the girls’ hall, where the party was.

“I walked up and down some more, stamping my feet. Pretty soon I heard a clock striking nine. In half an hour I’d have to be back at the power house. They were playing music at the party: I could hear it even in spite of the closed windows, and I thought maybe I’d go closer. But the wind was colder: there was a little snow in it, and besides I was afraid they might come for me and I wouldn’t be there. So I stamped my feet, walking up and down.

“Pretty soon I knew it must be nine thirty, but I stayed a while longer, and soon it was snowing hard—a blizzard. It was the first snow of the year, and somebody came to the door of the party and saw it, and then they all came out to look, yelling: I could hear the girls’ voices, kind of high and excited and fresh, and the music was louder. Then they went back, and the music was faint again, and then the clock struck ten. So I went back to the power house. I was already late.” He ceased, musing on the glittering battalions of waves and hands of wind slapping them whitely. He laughed again. “But I nearly joined one, though.”

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 “How about the bird?” the nephew asked. “Didn’t you hunt him up the next day?”

“He was gone. I never saw him again. I found out later he wasn’t even a student in the college. I never did know what became of him.” Fairchild rose. “Well, you get it finished, and we’ll form a stock company and get rich.”

The nephew sat clutching his knife and his cylinder, gazing after Fairchild’s stocky back until the other passed from view. “You poor goof,” the nephew said, resuming his work again.

It was that interval so unbearable to young active people: directly after lunch on a summer day. Every one else was dozing somewhere, no one to talk to and nothing to do. It was warmer than in the forenoon, though the sky was still clear and waves yet came in before a steady wind, slapping the Nausikaa on her comfortable beam and creaming on to fade and die frothing up the shoaling beach and its still palisade of trees.

The niece hung over the bows, watching the waves. They were diminishing: by sunset there would be none at all. But occasionally one came in large enough to send up a thin exhilarating spray. Her dress whipped about her bare legs and she gazed downward into the restless water, trying to make up her mind to get her bathing suit. But if I go in now I’ll get tired and then when the others go in later, I won’t have anything to do. She gazed down into the water, watching it surge and shift and change, watching the slack anchor cables severing the incoming waves, feeling the wind against her back.

Then the wind blew upon her face and she idled along the deck and paused again at the wheelhouse, yawning. Nobody there. But that’s so, the helmsman went off early to get word

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text:
Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/539

165* entail violence and cruelty.:) But the true word of God says, "The earth is the Lord's and its fulness, that is, its mountains, and valleys, and all regions."God is the only rightful ruler of this earth.

(:And what title has the nobility to the land and people? It got it by tricks.:) Who is not God's, has no right to possess or to hold anything that belongs to God, unless he has taken possession of it illegally and by violence. Thus, contrary to the divine law, our fathers bought and established illegal claims for us and this is our natural heritage: poverty and shame and death, and after that hell. (:Shame, trickery, falsehood, cruelty these are the true signs of our coats-of-arms. But God shall regard all these unlawful property holders as traitors of the kingdom of God:)

And if you who are heavy and round with fat object, saying, "Our fathers have bought these people and those manors for our inheritance," then, indeed, they made an evil business and an expensive bargain! For who has the right to buy people, to enslave them and to treat them with indignities as if they were cattle led to slaughter? You prefer dogs to people whom you cuss, despise, beat, from whom you extort taxes and for whom you Psalm 24:1.

title: Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/539


text:
Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 128.pdf/3154

128 STAT. 3130 :(2) —The Secretary shall not acquire, establish, or construct an airport under this section unless the airport is included in the national plan of integrated airport systems formulated by the Secretary of Transportation pursuant to section 47103 of title 49.
 * (3) —The operation and maintenance of airports under this section shall be in accordance with the standards and regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Transportation.

(c) —
 * (1) —To carry out this section, the Secretary may—
 * (A) acquire necessary land and interests in or over land;
 * (B) contract for the construction, improvement, operation, and maintenance of airports and incidental facilities;
 * (C) enter into agreements with other public agencies providing for the construction, operation, or maintenance of airports by those agencies or jointly by the Secretary and those agencies on mutually satisfactory terms; and
 * (D) enter into other agreements and take other action with respect to the airports as may be necessary to carry out this section.
 * (2) —This section does not authorize the Secretary to acquire any land, or interest in or over land, by purchase, condemnation, grant, or lease, without first obtaining the consent of the Governor of the State, and the consent of the chief executive official of the State political subdivision, in which the land is located.

(d) —To carry out this section, the Secretary may—
 * (1) sponsor projects under subchapter I of chapter 471 of title 49 independently or jointly with other public agencies; and
 * (2) use, for payment of the sponsor’s share of the project costs of those projects, any funds that may be—
 * (A) contributed or otherwise made available to the Secretary for those purposes; or
 * (B) appropriated or otherwise specifically authorized for that purpose.

(e) —All airports under the jurisdiction of the Secretary, unless otherwise specifically provided by law, shall be operated as public airports, available for public use on fair and reasonable terms and without unjust discrimination.

§ 101511. Authority of Secretary

(a) —The Secretary may construct, reconstruct, and improve roads and trails, including bridges, in System units.

(b) —
 * (1) —
 * (A) —When the Secretary determines it to be in the public interest, the Secretary may designate, as System unit approach roads, roads whose primary value


text:
Page:The four Gospels - translated from the Latin Vulgate, and diligently compared with the original Greek text, being a revision of the Rhemish translation (IA TheFourGospelsTranslated).pdf/57

ST. MATTHEW. 49 CHAPTER IV.

''Christ’s fast of forty days. He is tempted. He begins to preach, to call disciples, and to work miracles.''

1. Then was led by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil.

2. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards He was hungry.

3. And the tempter coming, said to Him: If Thou

the deserts were mountainous. By a change of a letter it would signify led off, or driven, which is conjectured to have been the original reading, gince it corresponds with the term used by St. Luke, iv. 1. See also Mark i. 12.
 * The Greek term signifies “led up"? as to a high place. Several of

 * The tloly Spirit. The article is here emphatic.

Moses entered into converse with God on the mountain. Elias jour- neyed forty days in the desert to mount floreb. Solitude is favorable to Tteflection and prayer: but our Lord needed it nat.
 * The prophets prepared themselves in solitude for their mission.

“ it is custumary. with the sacred writers to speak.of the result, as of the end to which the act was directed. The Spirit impelled Christ into the desert, that He might leave us the example of communion with God in prayer: but occasion was thence furnished for temptation. Cliriag was subject to no internal temptation, because He-was altogether free from original, 28 well as actual, sin, which is the cause, either proximate or remote, of all temptation. lle auffered Himself to he tempted exter- nally, and He underwent all kinds of severe trials from His enemier, for our example: “for we have not a high-prieat, whe cannot have come passion on our infirmities ; but one tempted in all things jike as we are, without sin.’ Heb. iv. 15. :

the divine power supporting them without food.
 * Moses and Ilias fasted in like manner, for the same length of time,

hungered,” says St. Augustin: “truly ao, but because he so willed it.” Tract. xlix.in Juan He waa pleased to experience hunger, that the reality of [dis human nature might be apparent in this respect.
 * Christ was subject to hunger only according to His will. “ Jesus

 * The devil, °

4


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Page:Mosquitos (Faulkner).pdf/127

 for a tug. She entered the room, examining the control fixtures with interest. She touched the wheel, tentatively. It turned all right: they must have fixed it, whatever was broken about it. She removed her hand and examined the room again, hopefully, and her eyes came upon a binocular suspended from a nail in the wall.

Through the binocular she saw a blur in two colors, but presently under her fingers the blur became trees startlingly distinct and separate leaf by leaf and bough by bough, and pendants of rusty green moss were beards of contemplative goats ruminating among the trees and above a yellow strip of beach and a smother of foam in which the sun hung little fleeting rainbows.

She watched this for a time, entranced, then swinging the glass slowly, waves slid past at arms’ length, curling and creaming; and swinging the glass further, the rail of the yacht leapt monstrously into view and upon the rail a nameless object emitting at that instant a number of circular yellow basins. The yellow things fell into the water, seemingly so near, yet without any sound, and swinging the glass again, the thing that had emitted them was gone and in its place the back of a man close enough for her to touch him by extending her hand.

She lowered the glass and the man’s back sprang away, becoming that of the steward carrying a garbage pail, and she knew then what the yellow basins were. She raised the glass again and again the steward sprang suddenly and silently within reach of her arm. She called “Hey!” and when he paused and turned, his face was plain as plain. She waved her hand to him, but he only looked at her a moment. Then he went on and around a corner.

She hung the binocular back on its nail and followed along the deck where he had disappeared. Inside the companion-

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 way and obliquely through the galley door she could see him moving about, washing the luncheon dishes, and she sat on the top step of the stairs. There was a small round window beside her, and he bent over the sink while light fell directly upon his brown head. She watched him quietly, intently but without rudeness, as a child would, until he looked up and saw her tanned serious face framed roundly in the port. “Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” he answered as gravely.

“You have to work all the time, don’t you?” she asked. “Say, I liked the way you went over after that man, yesterday. With your clothes on, too. Not many have sense enough to dive away from the propeller. What’s your name?”

David West, he told her, scraping a stew pan and sloshing water into it. Steam rose from the water and about it bobbed a cake of thick implacable looking yellow soap. The niece sat bent forward to see through the window, rubbing her palms on her bare calves.

“It’s too bad you have to work whether we are aground or not,” she remarked. “The captain and the rest of them don’t have anything to do now, except just lie around. They can have more fun than us, now. Aunt Pat’s kind of terrible,” she explained. “Have you been with her long?”

“No, ma’am. This is my first trip. But I don’t mind light work like this. Ain’t much to do, when you get settled down to it. Ain’t nothing to what I have done.”

“Oh. You don’t— You are not a regular cook, are you?”

“No, ma’am. Not regular. It was Mr. Fairchild got me this job with Mrs.—with her.”

“He did? Gee, he knows everybody almost, don’t he?”

“Does he?”

She gazed through the round window, watching a blackened kettle brighten beneath his brush. Soap frothed, piled like

title: Page:Mosquitos (Faulkner).pdf/128


text:
Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 128.pdf/3155

Rh :: is to carry System unit travel and that lead across land at least 90 percent owned by the Federal Government and that will connect the highways within a System unit with a convenient point on or leading to the National Highway System.
 * (B) —
 * (i) —A designated approach road shall not exceed—
 * (I) 60 miles in length between a System unit gateway and a point on or leading to the nearest convenient National Highway System road; or
 * (II) 30 miles in length if the approach road is on the National Highway System.
 * (ii) —Not to exceed 40 miles of any one approach road shall be designated in any one county.
 * (C) —An approach road designated for a System unit shall be treated as a supplementary part of the highway system of the System unit.
 * (2) —
 * (A) —The Secretary may construct, reconstruct, and improve approach roads designated under paragraph (1) (including bridges) and enter into agreements for the maintenance of the approach roads by State or county authorities or to maintain the approach roads when otherwise necessary.
 * (B) —Not more than $1,500,000 shall be allocated annually for the construction, reconstruction, and improvement of System unit approach roads.
 * (3) —When an approach road is proposed under this section across or within any national forest, the Secretary shall secure the approval of the Secretary of Agriculture before construction begins.

(c) —Under agreement with the Secretary, the Secretary of Transportation may carry out any provision of this section.

§ 101512. Conveyance to States of roads leading to certain historical areas

(a) —In this section, the term “State” means a State, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.

(b) —The Secretary may, subject to conditions as seem proper to the Secretary, convey by proper quitclaim deed to any State, county, municipality, or agency of a State, county, or municipality in which the road is located, all right, title, and interest of the United States in and to any Federal Government owned or controlled road leading to any national cemetery, national military park, national historical park, national battlefield park, or national historic site administered by the Service.

(c) —Prior to the delivery of any conveyance of a road under this section, the State, county, or municipality to which the conveyance is to be made shall notify the Secretary in writing of its willingness to accept and maintain the road.


text:
Page:Chapters on Jewish literature (IA chaptersonjewish00abra).pdf/205

Rh many geographical notes are to be found. But the composition of complete works dedicated to travel and exploration dates only from the twelfth century.

Before that time, however, interest in the whereabouts of the Lost Ten Tribes gave rise to a book which has been well called the Arabian Nights of the Jews. The “Diary of Eldad the Danite,” written in about the year 880, was a popular romance, to which additions and alterations were made at various periods. This diary tells of mighty Israelite empires, especially of the tribe of Moses, the peoples of which were all virtuous, all happy, and long-lived.

“A river flows round their land for a distance of four days’ journey on every side. They dwell in beautiful houses provided with handsome towers, which they have built themselves. There is nothing unclean among them, neither in the case of birds, venison, nor domesticated animals; there are no wild beasts, no flies, no foxes, no vermin, no serpents, no dogs, and, in general. nothing that does harm; they have only sheep and cattle, which bear twice a year. They sow and reap, they have all kinds of gardens with all kinds


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 summer clouds, floated in the sink like small reflections of clouds. “Have you known him long?” she asked. “Mr. Fairchild, I mean?”

“I didn’t know him any until a couple of days ago. I was in that park where that statue is, down close to the docks, and he came by and we were talking and I wasn’t working then, and so he got me this job. I can do any kind of work,” he added with quiet pride.

“You can? You don’t live in New Orleans, do you?”

“Indiana,” he told her. “I’m just traveling around.”

“Gee,” the niece said, “I wish I were a man, like that. I bet it’s all right, going around wherever you want to. I guess I’d work on ships. That’s what I’d do.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “That’s where I learned to cook—on a ship.”

“Not—”

“Yes’m, to the Mediterranean ports, last trip.”

“Gee,” she said again. “You’ve seen lots, haven’t you? What would you do, when the ship got to different places? You didn’t just stay on the ship, did you?”

“No’m. I went to a lot of towns. Away from the coast.”

“To Paris, I bet.”

“No’m,” he admitted, with just a trace of apology, “I never seemed to get to Paris. But next—”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” she said quickly. “Say, men just go to Europe because they say European women are fast, don’t they? Are European women like that? promiscuous, like they say?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I nev—”

“I bet you never had time to fool with them, did you? That’s what I’d do: I wouldn’t waste my time on women, if I went to Europe. They make me sick—these little college boys in their balloon pants, and colored stickers all over their

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 suitcases, bringing empty cognac bottles back with ’em and snickering about French girls and trying to make love to you in French. Say, I bet where you went you could see a lot of mountains and little cute towns on the side of ’em, and old gray walls and ruined castles on the mountains, couldn’t you?”

“Yes’m. And one place was high over a lake. It was blue as blue like washing water,” he said finally. “Water with bluing in it. They put bluing in the water when they wash clothes, country folks do,” he explained.

“I know,” she said impatiently. “Were there mountains around it?”

“The Alps Mountains, and little white boats on it no bigger than water beetles. You couldn’t see ’em moving: you only could see the water kind of spreading out to each side. The water would keep on spreading out until it pretty near touched both shores whenever a boat passed. And you could lay on your back on the mountain where I was and watch eagles flying around way up above the water, until sunset. Then the eagles all went back to the mountains.” David gazed through the port, past her sober tanned face mooned there by the round window, not even seeing it any more, seeing instead his washing powder colored lake and his lonely mountains and eagles against the blue.

“And then the sun would go down, and sometimes the mountains would look like they were on fire all over. That was the ice and snow on ’em. It was pretty at night too,” he added simply, scrubbing again at his pots.

“Gee,” she said with hushed young longing. “And that’s what you get for being a woman. I guess I’ll have to get married and have a bunch of kids.” She watched him with her grave opaque eyes. “No, I’m not, either,” she said fiercely, “I’m going to make Hank let me go there next summer. Can’t

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text:
Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/541

166* forge fetters while at the same time you will say to your dog, "Setter, come here and lie down on the pillow!" Those people were God's before you bought them!

Who has the right to buy people? They were God's and after they were enslaved  Christ Jesus bought this people to himself, not with silver or gold, but with his own precious blood and terrible suffering. He loves one human being more than all the riches of the earth together The heavenly Lord redeems and buys (the people) for his inheritance. And the earthly lord buys them in order to increase his pleasures through their pain, to make a bridge out of their bent backs, to make himself a soft bed by their labor; and he puts on them all the burden of his groaning table (as rich men have), of his bright and soft garments and other physical pleasures. Look, you fat one, what a sodomitic life you have prepared for your people! What will you say on the Day of Judgment when the Lord will seat Himself on the judgment seat, and when all injustices committed against this people yea, the very people which He Himself bought with His blood will be arraigned against you? And He will say to you, "As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." "Go to hell!"

And no high titles, no archives and records, no documents with seals will save you from perdition.

Ut omnes unum sint. John 17:21.

Psalm 24:1.

Matt. 25:40.

Matt. 25:40.

title: Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/541


text:
Page:The life of Charlotte Brontë (IA lifeofcharlotteb02gaskrich).pdf/185

 flattered; but he acknowledged that the expression was wonderfully good and life-like. She sent the following amusing account of the arrival of the portrait to the donor:—

1em

"The little box for me came at the same time as the large one for Papa. When you first told me that you had had the Duke's picture framed, and had given it to me, I felt half provoked with you for performing such a work of supererogation, but now, when I see it again, I cannot but acknowledge that, in so doing, you were felicitously inspired. It is his very image, and, as Papa said when he saw it, scarcely in the least like the ordinary portraits; not only the expression, but even the form of the head is different, and of a far nobler character. I esteem it a treasure. The lady who left the parcel for me was, it seems, Mrs. Gore. The parcel contained one of her works, 'The Hamiltons,' and a very civil and friendly note, in which I find myself addressed as 'Dear Jane.' Papa seems much pleased with the portrait, as do the few other persons who have seen it, with one notable exception; viz., our old servant, who tenaciously maintains that it is not like—that it is too old-looking; but as she, with equal tenacity, asserts that the Duke of Wellington's picture is a portrait of 'the Master' (meaning Papa), I am afraid not much weight is to be ascribed to her opinion: doubtless she confuses her recollections of me as I was in childhood with present impressions. Requesting always to be very kindly


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Page:The Mystery of the Blue Train.pdf/115

 but she had a dinner-basket in her compartment. She said to me that she had been obliged to leave her maid behind in Paris, so that I only need make up one berth. She took her dinner-basket into the adjoining compartment, and sat there while I made up the bed; then she told me that she did not wish to be wakened early in the morning, that she liked to sleep on. I told her I quite understood, and she wished me 'goodnight.'"

"You yourself did not go into the adjoining compartment?"

"No, Monsieur."

"Then you did not happen to notice if a scarlet morocco case was amongst the luggage there?"

"No, Monsieur, I did not."

"Would it have been possible for a man to have been concealed in the adjoining compartment?"

The conductor reflected.

"The door was half open," he said. "If a man had stood behind that door I should not have been able to see. him, but he would, of course, have been perfectly visible to Madame when she went in there."

"Quite so," said Poirot, "Is there anything more you have to tell us?"

"I think that is all. Monsieur. I can remember nothing else."

"And now this morning?" prompted Poirot.

"As Madame had ordered, I did not disturb her. It was not until just before Cannes that I ventured to knock at the door. Getting no reply, I opened it. The lady appeared to be in her bed asleep. I took her by the shoulder to rouse her, and then"


text:
Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/543

(:Chelc̄icky̍ recapitulates his account of how the early Church remained faithful to Christ for the first three hundred and twenty years, how the Emperor and the Pope made an alliance, bartering their powers, and how the faith became corrupted with the defilement of the Church.:)

But remember this, Christians who follow faith and arrange their life accordingly cannot in truth rule over each other in the manner of pagan rulership. A Christian lord cannot buy people and rule over them 167*

title: Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/543