Destiny

nd, over the kitchen table, her eyes stole ever and anon to the cracked mirror that hung against the wall, and after each glance she turned defiantly away with something like sullenn

aint would be a form of blasphemy. Now as she wielded her broom, her angular shoulders ached with rheumatism, and, in a voice as creaking as her joints, she sang, "For the Master said there is work to do

ccountably into tears, both women looked up, startled. Mar

world can have struck the child?" It was to Aunt Hannah that she put the questi

l in an impassioned voice. "They call me spindle-

er Mary that had

of pain with a

r that I've g

d not anticipated, found herself unequipped wit

e announced in a tone of finality, "

r eleven years of life she stood forth mutinous. Her eyes blazed, and she trembled passi

r," she rebelliously flamed out. "What good can it do God t

must fall an innocent victim to the avenging bolt which

nvite the wrath of the Almighty like that! Tell her how w

ing in the door. His coarse lumberman's socks were pulled up o

anything wrong about complainin'?" he demanded sho

Hannah spoke with the aggrieved uncertainty of one unexpectedly called up

rk to do. I wonder you don't feel afraid to eat buckwheat cakes that He doesn't send down to you by an angel with His compliments. My idea is that He wants folks to do

of a God-fearing, toiling family whose righteousness was the righteo

she was defending Divinity, "the Scriptures

t's dry-rotting. What I want is the world-the whole of it, good an' bad. I want what you can win out of fighting. Mary wants to be

e counted a prize," came the pious

g to see that the world gives Mary what she wants. If a girl can be made pretty Mary's go

flung himself from the room a

eft the house and turned into the woods. He tramped with his br

es" of hooves told of deer that had been feeding. At last, he came to a clearing where fire had eaten its way and charred the ruins of the forest. There a large buck lifted its antlered head among the berry bushes and stood for a moment at startled gaze. But Ham made no movement to raise the rifle that

noisily and lumbered away with spread tail into the painted foliage. But all the beauty of it was a bea

th human defeat; a place where a family had fought poverty and been put to flight. Once he paused and looked down a long slope to a habitation by the roadside. The miserable battle was just ending there, and, though he stood a quarter of a mile away, he

rned on his heel and trudged away. His father's farm was little more productive than this one, but his father had that un

and she carried an old fashion paper which she meant to con. This newly discovered necessity of beauty was a very serious affa

ues of Paris and Vienna. There were delightful bits of information concerning some mysterious thing called the haute monde and likewise pictures that instructed one how to dress one's hair and adorn

gged until she glanced up at last to see that the west was kindling, and that she must start back to the duller realities of home. She had been i

ee a vehicle driven by a man who obviously had no kinship with stony farms or lumber camps. She paused, and

tle sister, how I can

in descent, and Mary, who knew every trail and woodland path,

oy. Lines traced a network around his eyes, but they were whimsical lines such as come from persistent laughter-the sort of laughter that insists on expressing itself even in the face of misfortune. His open mackinaw collar revealed a carelessly knotted scarf decorated with a large black pearl, and as he drew off a glove she noticed that his brown h

d upon whom we find ourselves bestowing confidences as soon as we have said, "Good-day." Perhaps they ar

he mountain road, and since she was a child she was talking of herself, while he nodded grav

ld. He had studied under tutors while traveling about the Continent, and being prepared to take up his work in t

y, and his reply was laconic, though he smiled down from the buggy

n would let such small creatures as flies or spiders or

ot that you lived in a world unsullied b

untains to which come refugees from the white plague, see

fortunately, no one reads-and doing equally inconsequential things. Now I'm going down for a few days in the city. I can only go when th

e?" she asked him in

possible. Several doctors tell me that I have an even chance. It seems to be a sort of fifty-

before who chatted so casually about the probable necessity of dying.

r name?" sh

cognizing in the name a synonym for titanic finance. "In front of that they put a number of ridiculous prefixes

girl told him who she was and wh

ember that because in, say ten years, provide

e? Why?" s

ghed, and when the paroxysm had e

to feed a woman's vanity-even a woman of eleven. Did anyone ev

e raised one hand to her face to touch her long lashes. Silent tears welled up

made on the young man who had been reared in the capitals of Europe was quite different. He had been sent, on the verge of manhood, into the he

ess about her which the thought of that day might have charged to the attendance of witches about her birth. The promise of beauty she had, but a beauty unlike that of common stand

lized the promise of something strangely gorgeous. As she shifted her position a shaft of mellow sunli

ger; and his voice held so simple and courteous

or, which many painters will tell you is the soul-essence of all beauty, she had in

The eyes were regnantly dominant and it was here that the surprising witch-like quality held sway. The school-children had said they did not match, and they did not, for with the sun shining on her the man in the buggy realized that the right one wa

reins hang on his knees as he bent

are lustrous and miraculous, and control destinies. I think yours are like that. One can flash lambent fire and the other c

en't even mates and anyway eyes aren't all." For a moment she hesitated, then

they are misty, let men beware," he commented half-aloud

chool and-and-" she broke off,

milingly down at

ty isn't that which comes before the 'teens. If you never have anything else, be grateful for your eyes-and remember this aft

ugly after all." She spoke with no trace of vanity, merely

o anything of the sort. Simply wait and a

e that having eyes that didn't

u are a miraculous color-scheme. It's a bit hard to express, but I can give you examples-" He broke off suddenly and laughed at himself. "After all," he beg

nyhow," she

inlay; the Italian renaissance has it; splashed from a palette that knew no stint-no economy. It's a brilliant, triumphant sort of p?an in which the notes are all notes of color. You

voice was that of admiring wonder, and the young m

back on life when they are old and wise, but I am doing it while still young

onfessed a little regretfully. It seemed to her from wh

ould not have said half of it. A good part of my conversation has been in the manner of soliloquy. Hermits often talk to themselves. I shall now s

rious. When she stole up to the room under the eaves and looked again into the little mirror, she did not turn away

to her, yet which was sonorous enough and grandiloquent enough to impress her deeply. At last, also lest memory prove illusive, she

s afternoon Paul had been pumping its wheezy bellows while the young woman who contributed the Sabbath music practise

of sound, he wandered on, fancy led, until some actuality broke the spe

rush, and Ham emerged from the woods. As the elder boy came up, Pa

to the leaves fallin' ag

e organ." Paul's repl

bout much except m

the lad spoke almost aggressively

as an Esquimo that can't be happy without flowers. Grand opera doesn't come as often as the circus, and some years the circus doesn't come. Listen!" He put one hand into

d forgot his air-castles. Money was so rare a thing in their narrow

e emanated from them the clash of silver-not the tinkle of light ni

artin," was the succinct reply,

ered with perplexity. "But, Ha

nce. "Sure I haven't," he cheerfull

"how you could sell something you didn't have." They were d

pose those fellers have got amongst the lot of them? Not enough to feed a sick pigeon with. I sold these lambs

had to go in three directions. If he'd had sense enough, he could have got 'em himself in the first place for seven instead of ten. The thre

d a feat somehow savoring of business acumen, which was a matter he could not hope to comprehend. Yet some comment

uess they were all right," he enlightened casually. "As for me, I didn't s

ith an impulsive, almost impassioned gesture, Ham clapped his hand on the other's shoulder and halted. Paul, too, stopped, a

derella, nobody but a bunch of hill-bullies would ever see her. I want power, power that the world's got to bow down to and acknowledge-and I might just as well be locked up in somebody' hen-house. Well, maybe it's enough for you only to dream about the music you don't ever expect to hear, but as for me, I dream,

o the innate music of the inspired human tongue, and there was that in the face and figure of the taller stripling which abashed him, as though he had intruded on a prophet in his moment of exaltation. Ham was liste

that comes from the ends of the earth-an' those ships are goin' to go an' come when and where I tell 'em! They're goin' to carry cargoes at my biddin' an' my people are goin' to have what they want. Instead of a wheezy little bellows organ that acts like it had the asthma and cracked voices singin' hymns out of tune, you're goin' to listen

le from lips that trembled excitedly under the hypnotic spell of th

say 'maybe you can': it says 'there isn't powe

he timidly inquired: "Where did the Montagu come

be. I took it because I'm a brother to men like that-but I'm going to go beyond 'em all, an' I'll carry the name further than it was ever carried before. I

ap let

he ocean. That's the difference between a river an' a pond. It's the difference between followin' a

one who sees only the difficulties. "There are some mighty-good people here, an' ou

've got raw material here that's all right-like us-but you've got to take it away to finish it up. As for the hard f

the mad arrogance of the declaration was lost. The ecstasy with which Ham spoke