of her fairy trappings and put into a modest frock. Her hair, released from its little knot, was falling about her shoulders and was being combed by a maid. But she escaped from the maid-and for the moment from all the life which the dressing-room implied-when she saw Mrs. Baron standing in her doorway. She had put her arms about the trembling old lady's neck, and for the moment they were both silent. And then Mrs. Baron drew back and stood a moment, her hands framing Bonnie May's face. "You do forget that I was a disagreeable old woman!" she murmured. "Oh, that!" came the warm response; "you know you forget just little slips when you are happy in your work. And I couldn't have remembered such a little thing, anyway, when you'd been so lovely to me!" She took Mrs. Baron's hand in both her own and clung to it, and lifted it to her face and laid her cheek against it. "If you only knew how I've thought of you-of all of you-and I longed for you! And how much I wanted you to see me at work, so you would-would know me better! You know, just talking doesn't prove anything. I wanted so much to have you know that I was an-an artist!" In the theatre the orchestra was still playing while the people filed out. In the distance there was the muffled sound of the procession of motor-cars starting and of announcers shouting numbers above the din. It was Flora's turn to press forward and take her seat beside Bonnie May now; and while Mrs. Baron stood aside, smiling quite happily, the manager spoke to her as if he were merely continuing a conversation which had been interrupted. "Yes, I'm particularly anxious to have you go on with-with the lessons, you know. Not just the books and music, you understand, but-well, say a general influence. You know, she's tremendously fond of all of you. I mean to get her off the stage as soon as the run here is finished. It's time for her to have a little real life. And I'd like things to go on about as they were-I mean, having her in your house, or mine, just as she feels about it. You were the first to give her a mother's attention. I'd be grateful if you felt you could go on with that." Mrs. Baron tried to answer this quite punctiliously, but she had to turn aside to hide her eyes, and when she spoke her words were a surprise to her. "I think you're a good man," she said. And she did not trust herself to say anything more. She was gazing at Bonnie May again, and noticing how the strange little creature was clinging to Flora's hand with both her own, and tellingwith her eyes illustrating the story gloriously of the great events which had transpired since that day when the mansion went back to its normal condition of loneliness and silence. Baron was observing her, too. He had found a chair quite outside the centre of the picture, and he was trying to assume the pose of a casual onlooker. But Bonnie May's eyes met his after a time and something of the radiance passed from her face. She turned away from Flora and stood apart a little and clasped her hands up nearly beneath her chin, and her whole being seemed suddenly tremulous. She was thinking of the home that had been made for her, and of how it was Baron who had opened its door. The others had been lovely, but the ready faith and the willingness to stand the brunt-these had been his. She moved forward almost shyly until she stood before him, and then her hands went out to him. "I must offer my congratulations, too!" he said. But she ignored that. "Do you remember a time when we talked together about some words that we thought were beautiful-up in the attic?" she asked. "And you told me you didn't think much of aunt' or 'uncle,' but that you liked 'father' and "Yes, that was the time." "You know, there's another word I've thought of since then that I've wished I could-could have for my own." He seemed to be casting about for that other word. "It's a lovely word, too. . . ." She drew closer to him. "Help me!" she pleaded, and when he looked into her eyes, a bit startled, she whispered "Brother . . . brother!" Her hand was on his shoulder, and then it slipped its way to his neck. "Ah, that is a good word!" said Baron. And then the tempest of affection broke, and she had her arms about his neck. He had no idea she was so strong. She was choking him a bit. But no, it wasn't really the strength of her arms, after all, he realized. And then, because his mother and Flora were watching, and because-well, because he was Baron, he straightened up and got possession of her hands again. He patted them lightly. "It is a good word," he repeated. "It's one that has come to have a much bigger meaning for me since I knew you." "And you won't think it's got anything to do with that silly old joke He was really perplexed. "You know when they say 'I'll be a sister to you!' She was bubbling over with the old merriment now. "Just to make you keep at a distance, you know." "Oh no, I'll be sure it hasn't anything to do with that." He regarded her almost dreamily as she turned again to his mother and Flora. He was thinking of the amazing buoyancy, of the disconcerting, almost estranging humor which lay always just beneath the surface; of her fine courage; of the ineradicable instinct which made everything a sort of play. They would be hers always. Or would there come a time when she would lose them? He wondered. "There is our number!" interrupted Peter Addis, who had been listening to the voice of the announcers. He had brought the party to the theatre in his own car. There was a reluctant movement toward the theatre. ". . . Oh, a matinee performance now and then, if she likes," Thornburg was explaining to Baron. "But for a few years, at least, that will be all. She's going to have the things she's had to go without all her life." They followed the line of the wall around toward the front exit. The orchestra had quit playing. The time had come to extinguish the lights. But after the others had gone Baron stood a moment alone. He looked thoughtfully toward the upper righthand box. "I thought she was lost that day," he mused. "I thought I was rescuing her. And now I know she wasn't really lost then. Not until afterward. And now she has found her home again." THE END. THE CONVERT By Frederick Van Beuren, Jr. BELOVED, my Beloved, thou hast laid Dreams have come true; promises are fulfilled; These things, Belovèd, God has done through thee I cannot think that any hand but thine, Listen! the wind is singing. Oh! before I loved thee, I could hear no song above There swing two whispers, "Cressida" and "Love." The blessing of the sun, the flowers' perfume, I never knew the stars had so much fire, For me the moon had ne'er such radiance, I hear the ocean's deep, vibrating tones Oh! in thine eyes, clear wells of perfect truth, Beloved-yes! I know the world is still The same world that it was 'fore I knew thee, This thou hast done; so all my gratitude I give to thee and, through thee, give to God. THE POINT OF VIEW R Romance and the Saddle OMANCE likes to come on horseback; the jingling spurs and bridle-irons chant a happy pean in his ears; and from the saddle, as from a throne, he looks out over the workaday world. Romance always has been linked with riding; in the playroom mounted on a gallant rocking-chair youth rides into a land of golden deeds; later he swings in long gallops on the faithful hobbyhorse into spicy and fugitive adventure. To the page on a prancing palfrey and to the cavalry-man in khaki the lure of romance is the same; the rhythm of galloping hoofs thuds always in the imagination, the lady's favor on the lance and the quivering scarlet guidon flutter alike a mysterious and eternal challenge to the spirit of youth. "To horse and away" and all the world's before one. Though at first the child demands that his stage be set-let the properties be grotesque and absurd as they will-he later enters a land of pure imagination and lives unhampered by the necessities of stage invention; "the hobby-horse is forgot"-and he gallops vicariously and battles by proxy. But after a time there comes a regeneration of the dramatic, and his roving eye lights in newly realized wonder on the docile, quietly blinking family horse. and gradually he holds converse with te outer world only through the medium of expressive ears. A cat is subjective and is independent; but a horse is only nobly p2thetic. Even ponies, dearly loved by clldren, look upon the world with a vision somewhat shadowed by sadness. And Bobby, left to his solitary contemplations most of the day, was becoming more and more introspective. Every afternoon in the placid routine of his life he mildly propelled the family surrey, albeit he did it with an air of detachment. The surrey was harnessed to him, but Bobby's manner disavowed its presence; and he jogged along the shady avenues and down the long country lanes as though he were on private business of his own. He was like an old gentleman trotting disinterestedly on his daily walk, accomplishing necessary exercise but involved in mental agitations of far greater import. But for all this air of reflection there was a certain aspect in his eyes which belied it—a sort of reserve fund of interest for those things which had not yet happened. In this wideeyed expectation of a happy future Bobby was something of a child, something of a man—and little of a horse. He had settled down to an ambling pace in life and did not care to change his ways. His hours of leisure, and they were many, he spent in a sunny corner of the paddock whence he had a regal view over the lawns. And here, blinking quietly and meditating, he planned to pass a quiet and philosophic age-contemplating life even as a garden. So was Bobby, our staid old carriagehorse, commandeered by me in my youth to serve the spirit of romance. At the time I saw in him a gallant companion he was fast becoming an introspective equine. Almost all horses are introspective; they have not the inscrutability of the cat, or, having it, because of their larger form and because of their service to man, cannot express it. Cats live in a world of past ages on some other plane, and we call them inscrutable because they so seldom hasten to leave that other plane when we thrust ourselves upon them. Horses live in a sort of pathos of loneliness. A colt has an outward-looking eye, but as he grows older his interests swing in constantly decreasing circles until finally he is almost purely subjective. And as this comes upon him his eyes turn inward his halter, his eyes expressed not pettish But this was not to be. Romantic youth looked upon him and saw his mild eye snorting fire; youth thought of him and he became a prancing charger. And Bobby entered into his squirehood and the days of discipline fell upon him. Fundamentally, Bobby had a dear and kindly nature, and his remonstrances were always gentle. Even when a primitive saddle, made of horse-blanket and rope, was “lashed round his mizzenmast" and strings were tied to ness but an inquiring perplexity. Then a gnat scaled his mountainous sides. Gnat! How was Bobby to know at this stage of the game that he bore the gallant Rudolpho, the queen's page? Later on this knowledge crept gradually into his tardy perceptions, and he put an extra curvet into his ambling and held his head somewhat more proudly. Bobby was, above all things, dearly beloved; his heavy struggles in the fantastic fields of the imagination brought a look of persistent inquiry into his eyes, and this, with his well-meaning clumsiness, made him strangely like a little boy and provoked great bursts of affection. But, try as he might to enter into these games of the imagination, Bobby always retained an air of wistful reluctance. He never was quite sure of his cue-and what should have been a noble entrance-stride in the pageantry of play he blurred with a walk of questioning self-consciousness. Perhaps it was a personal sense of responsibility for my safety which hindered his dramatic development. Later a circus ring was made, and after long training Bobby galloped around it. Then came the moment for the World's Greatest Equestrienne Queen of the Sawdust Ring -to make her flying mount. Quite properly speaking the flying mount was to be modified: one stirrup had been lengthened and the World's Greatest Equestrienne expected to make use of it. But this affair was not approved by Bobby, for at the first intimation that he was to be mounted he stopped with utmost consideration, his benign eyes full of worried inquiry. And no training, no discipline, no affection ever shook his convictions on this issue. He had the tremendous problem of adjusting the vagaries of a Celtic playfellow to his own Saxon temperament. After long endeavor he learned somewhat to gambol in the paths of pantomime; though, to speak truly, a joust remained always foreign to his affections. Bobby was logical rather than intuitive, and it took a meditating length of time for the perceptions of the romantic life to register on his perplexed and ponderous mind. Even after long training Bobby took a deeper interest in his oats than in the tremendous tournaments where arms clashed and noble causes always prospered. But if Bobby preferred the quiet of solitude with leisure for an orderly procession of his own thoughts, interspersed, perchance, with occasional-quite occasional-interruptions for food, Sniff, a noble Kentuckian, leaped mind and heart and body to the service of imagination. His slender bay flanks, arched neck and tail, eyes wide open, ears always pricked forward, and nostrils quivering with excitement all these equipped him for a part in the spectacle of life. No one was more fully aware of his perfections than himself. This is as it should be. "If I am a king and know it not, then shall I be no king." The very manner of his singlefoot proclaimed: "All the world's a stage, and I'm the only person on it!" But, like his human friends of somewhat the same cast of character, he realized the aesthetic value of an audience; and in this realization he showed himself an artist. However this conviction may have sobered his secret mind, no trace of homage, no ignoble catering ever lessened the independent nobility of his outward behavior. He pranced as prettily for his shadow as for the judges— and, it may be an unworthy thought, for the possibility that he personalized his shadow and made of him a Tinker Bell of ever-fresh admiration. Sniff never stood, he posed; he never walked, he pranced; and it may be said of him that he made of life a glorious and beautiful pageant, through which, as a scarlet thread in some great tapestry, he galloped in a noble splendor. He set his stage and then took the centre of it; and because he was so beautiful and because he was so sure-the rest of his world granted it to him. But Sniff was more than a pretender, for to his beauty and assurance was added the perfect knowledge and practise of pace. To a natural grace he brought an exquisite surety of technic. He knew how to manage his feet; and higher intellects than his have failed in this. Maid Marian, a noble beauty of high nerves, curvetted first into my knowledge under the massive boughs of a Sherwood. So it was she had her Saxon name though her nature belied it. A Castilian name or a Celtic would have been of deeper significance in revealing the shadow of her dreaming past. Because her inmost soul sheltered this half-guessed mystery, her nerves responded all the more intently to those inexplicable irritants of a well-bred horse: paper blowing beside the road, the black hole of a culvert, or sound coming from the unShe was not afraid of great sound, seen. |