AS THE HART PANTETH
BY
HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES.
NEW YORK:
COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY
G. W. Dillingham Co., Publishers,
MDCCCXCVIII.
[All rights reserved.]
TO
A MEMORY.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE | ||
| THE CHILD | 7 | |
| THE GIRL | 104 | |
| THE WOMAN | 185 |
[Pg 7]
AS THE HART PANTETH.
THE CHILD.
————◆————
CHAPTER I.
He sat just outside the lofty doorway, thatopened between the bare hall and front verandah.The great white columns held a wild clematisvine, the leaves of which almost concealedthe bricks where the plaster had fallen off. Presentlya child came out with a violin in her hand.She went up to him, and laying her full cheekagainst his shrunken one, caressed him. Her[Pg 8]blue eyes that went black in an instant, from thepupils’ swift dilation, had the direct gaze of oneknowing nothing of the world and never fearingto be misunderstood. She was slim yet strong;her waving hair that fell softly about her face wasthe color of sunburnt cornsilk, her skin ovallingfrom it, smooth and white, like a bursting magnoliabud.
“Grandpa, I can play ‘The Mocking Bird’ foryou now.”
“Play it, God’s child; play it,” he said.
As she leaned against the column and beganplaying, his face, old and worn with many griefs,seemed, for a moment, rejuvenated by the spiritof his lost youth. His heart stirred strangelywithin him, and he was minded of another slim,little girl, who came down to the gate to meethim when the day was done in the long ago.She had the same glorious hair, and tender, fearlesseyes and love for him. But that was morethan forty years gone by and she was dead.
As the strains became fuller and sweeter, a[Pg 9]bird began twittering, trilling among the leaves,imitating the sounds it heard.
“Listen. Do you hear that, Esther?” whispering,as he searched for a sight of the singer.“There it is. It’s a mocking bird,” he said,pointing to the young thing, as the flutingfeathers on its throat stood out like the pipes ofan organ. Its song, accompanying the tune,never ceased until the violin was tossed upon thebench and the child was in the old man’s arms.
“That was beautiful, beautiful!” His eyes werefilled with tears of enthusiasm that fell u