houses, brown and time-stained, with a bit of garden gay with hollyhock, mingled with onions and potatoes; and always in some odd corner, tall and regal-sitting, as it were, on golden thrones-the once-despised, now royally elect in the realms of art-the sunflower. "I have not Paul's complexion," he said; "mine is warranted. How has he painted you? Is the picture for me?" "He is going to make two-one for Aunt Zeph, if she likes it. How hateful she is! Do you know what she said when Paul asked her how she came to call me Sun Flowers of the sun, they welcomed him eagerly; they shook out their yellow hair; they turned their faces long-flower?" ingly after him, like fond maidens after their lovers; they seemed to live for him alone, while he, in true masculine fashion, shone for all. Under a tall group of these regal yellow flowers, and holding a great wide-opened one over her head to keep off a stray beam of sunshine that struck her brown eyes, sat a young girl. There was a slight breeze that stirred her long hairsoft, fluffy, yellow hair, half waved, half curled-crowning her with a sort of aureole. Her brown dress, of well-worn velveteen, clung so caressingly to her form that it seemed to fit her like the calyx of a flower; and her face, rosy and white, flower-tinted, only showed more fresh and bright in the searching sunshine. Her eyes, brown and velvety, and darkly fringed, roved here and there from the mountain shadow to the plumy pines, and then came back to the face of a young man who stood near her. "Larry, don't be sentimental. I hate it," she drawled, provokingly. "Why didn't you look for one of those Bartlett pears? There must be some on the tree yet." The young man, a plain-looking, athletic fellow, evidently country-born and bred, bit his lip to restrain some impatient answer. He had a world of force and will expressed in his face; but he had been this girl's slave for years-ever since he had first seen her in short frocks. One glance of those brown, velvet eyes could subjugate him in a moment. "No. Why was it? I thought it was because you liked them so much when you were a little toddler-the big bright flowers; or, perhaps, because you have such a long name. Esmeralda is too grand for an everyday household word.” "No. Aunt Zeph said it was because I always turned toward ease and comfort, and cared for nothing else; that I would turn a cold shoulder on my dearest friends if misfortune's storms overtook them; that I was a fairweather friend, seeking the sunshine always-always, like the sunflower.' Larry was silent. Dearly as he loved the girl, he recognized the truth in this diagnosis of character. "But Paul didn't mind. If Aunt Zeph imagined she could prejudice me in his eyes, she was mistaken. He says he likes sunshine as well as I do, and we are alike.” "As like as two butterflies," muttered Larry. "And for whom is the other picture ?" he asked. “Oh, for Paul, of course, when he makes it. Why, he gives Aunt Zeph hers just for the pleasure of getting one himself." Larry starts up as if he had been sitting on a hornet's nest. "Sunflower," he cried, angrily, "do you care for me at all?” "Of course I do," very promptly. "Then you will not give your picture to another man." "I like you very much. I shall never forget how "Why don't you ask your fine new friend?" he mut- good you have been to me when Aunt Zeph was so cross tered, gloomily. "Oh, he's so busy !" cried the girl, eager to torment him. "He's painting my picture. Of course I don't want to be eating pears in that. It's too lovely for anything! But Paul says 66 Who?" exclaimed the other, suddenly. and stingy, and all the cherries you used to bring me, "Paul. Good gracious, how you startle me! Your looking at him frankly with her wide brown eyes. eyes literally shot fire." He might have read how hopeless was his case in those And the girl held the sunflower between them, as if to unshadowed depths. If he had once seen those eyes cast shield herself from those angry eyes. Good-by!" cried Larry, turning away with a suppressed oath. He could not bear it. He felt as if he were on the rack, and this smiling girl, with her fresh, sweet face, were turning the screws. The girl started up. down before Paul Malden's swift glances, and the face suffused in blushes, he would have known. But he clung the very shadow of a hope. He seized the little hand and said, softly: "Darling, I will be satisfied with what you can give me. I shall make your love warmer, if you will give me time." "Time!" echoed the girl, with a mocking laugh. "Why, you've been seven years already!" Larry winced. The laugh sounded heartless. "But I will serve seven more for such a wife !" he cried, with that imbecile infatuation common to lovers. "Sunflower!" sounded a sharp voice from the door of "Good gracious! don't go. It's so horribly hot, and the little brown house, and a tall, gaunt woman, in a I haven't a thing to amuse me." "Thank you. I don't care to serve for your amusement." "Oh, come, Larry, don't be disagreeable. Come and sit down by me. You'll be sunstruck if you go out in this. You'll be sunburnt." Larry could not help laughing. His face was so brown and tanned already that the idea was ridiculous. But he could not resist the shapely little hand held out to him. He took it and kissed it, and then held it fast. gingham sunbonnet, with a tin pail in her hand, appeared. "Where be you? I must hev some flour this blessed minute, and just you hunt abeout for an egg or so. Them air flannel-cakes never riz, and I must lighten 'em up somehow." The girl started up with alacrity, and Larry wondered that no frown marred her pretty face. diant smile-when, half an hour afterward, he returned hand, staring dully before her. Her face, always colorwith a flushed face. less and thin, looked very wan and drawn in that blaze of sunlight. "How good you are!" she cried. "I am so glad you got the things, for Paul is coming to tea.” Larry dropped the basket, at the imminent danger of breaking the eggs, and turned away without another word. Not even the sound of his name, pronounced by the woman he loved, brought him back. He strode down the dust-white path, on-on to where the trees closed over it, where the mountain-ways began leading him knee-deep in ferns and lichens and wild flowers. The golden-rod blazed everywhere-that lavish gold of the Autumn days. He threw himself down upon the ground, ruthlessly crushing a myriad spikes of its bloom. He knew by the crimson leaves that dropped upon him that the Summer was nearly over, and he felt as if a pall had suddenly been let down upon its glory and its warmth. What was there left to him now, if this girl had given her heart to another? What would he do with his life if she were snatched out of it? She had been the life of his life so long! She had liked him; she would have loved him but for the newcomer-this Paul Maulden, with his silky mustache, his melancholy eyes, his style and manner, his faultless clothes, and all the nameless power of fascination that belongs to the man of the world. I'm "Worse than that! Here, I ain't got the heart. too upset by it all to tell ye; but read-read!" And she held out the note, which was crushed and torn. But Larry could read it. It was very short, yet it took him a long time, for he could not believe the words he read, and he went over them twice: "DEAR AUNT: I am going away with the man I love. He has to go in a hurry, and there was no time to make arrangements. But he cannot live without me, he says, nor can I live without him. We are to be married in the city. I feel provoked that I am not to have a regular wedding, with flowers and white satin, but he says that will come afterward. You will be angry, I know; but I love him. He is the light of my life-my sun-and you know I am only a poor little sunflower." "When did she go?" he asked, hoarsely. "Last night, I s'pose. I found that at bedtime. I Larry looked at his own coarse, red hands and thick went to her room by chance to get some toothache-drops, boots, and groaned. "A woman's heart is a riddle,” he said. “I could defend her from an enemy with these, but she would like Paul's slim white hands much better. Well, well, we will see whose hands she will choose to place hers in for life. I must put it to the test. I cannot go on in this way, or I shall go mad." So, having decided that any certainty was better than suspense, Larry waited a few days to give his treasure time to reflect, and then took his way to the little brown cottage. As he neared it, the strong man felt a strange trembling pass over him. Now that he was near her, now that he felt that for him all would be settled in a few moments, the pulses of life seemed to stand still. After all, perhaps, doubt was better than a verdict that would take away all the light and warmth and bloom of his life. He leaned a moment on the little gate. There were the sunflowers standing up grandly, holding up their golden crowns in the sunshine-yellow chalices, brimful, as it were, with aurient wine-but the girl was not stretched beneath them to-day. No glimpse of the dunbrown velvet dress and floating yellow hair was to be seen. The house-door was closeda strange thing on such a Summer day; even the windows above were tight. The house was not awake-at least, it had not opened its eyes; yet it was high noon. A strange chill crept over Larry as he looked about him. He felt a subtle change in the atmosphere. Something had happened. Horrible visions of some tragedy flashed into his mind. His blood seemed to congeal to ice, and he hastened his steps and knocked hurriedly at the closed door-a knock that seemed to shudder through the silence. However, he did not wait long. A well-known voice, with a sharp edge to it, called out "Come !" and he felt his heart beat once more. "Still, there must be something the matter; the room looked strangely in order. There was no preparation for dinner. Aunt Zeph sat in one corner, a bit of a note in her and there I saw no signs of her. Oh, how could she ?how could she? I've slaved for her and loved her, and— but, lor'! it was her natur' to do jest what she'd a mind ter-she always did." "And you have not done anything ?" "Lor', no! What could be done? She's of ageeighteen last week. The minx knew what she was about! I ain't got a might of authority now." Larry groaned. There was, indeed, nothing to be de done. He could only offer to serve the poor old woman in any way possible, and then he left her alone with her grief. His own was so much heavier, madder, fiercer. Poor Aunt Zeph never questioned the good faith of the man for whom Sunflower had forsaken her; but Larry knew more of human nature than the old-maid recluse. A thought rankled in his heart and worked like madness in his brain. He knew an honorable man would never have acted in such a way, and he feared everything. He could not rest. A fever fired his heart and burned in every vein. He must know the worst. Weeks passed, then months, without a clew. He left his home and found some work in a neighboring city, to which he at last traced them. Then, one night—a cold night of sleet and storm-he traced her who had so long been lost in the dark depths of a great town. She was alone-deserted-and trying to find work. Deserted! Larry's heart beat high at the word. No, not deserted, for he was there, as ready to do battle for her as was ever knight of old for the stainless lady of his love; for his love was of that rare kind that the fire of anguish could not burn it, nor the great flood-tides of guilt wash it away. He found the house-a tenement house in a squalid neighborhood. It was evening, but the narrow staircase was not lighted. He heard a drunken man stumbling up before him. A blood-curdling oath sounded through the darkness. He found the door, as directed. No voice answered 500 his knock. He opened it at last, and stood for a moment as if turned into stone. The room was almost bare. There was no carpet on the dingy floor, no curtain at the smeared window. On the table stood a cup of untasted tea and a crust, and near it sat a young girl. Oh, not her! Oh, for God's sake! not Sunflower-that wan, haggard, disheveled creature, with the yellow hair tangled on her neck, the white, colorless face, the livid lips, the wild brown eyes, the clutched hands, the feet that beat a restless tattoo on the bare floor. Yes; she has lifted her eyes to is, with a strange love-nothing can change that, dear. You do not under- I need you, darling, to make me happy. Do you know stand." that in making me happy you may find your own happiness ?" "What!" she said, a slow comprehension coming into her face. "You love me spite of this-this shamespite of what I am ?" "Yes; I want you. You are down; I will lift you up. You shall be my wife, if you will-if you care for me." "Care for you! I ought to drop down on the floor to kiss the dust from your shoes. To think-to think I had the love of such a man, and threw it away! Oh, the pity of it-the pity of it!" The trouble and sin had wakened the deeper nature in the frivolous girl. How different she was from the bright creature who had jeered at his love and mocked all sentiment! A gleam of light came into the brown, velvety eyes; some of the old beauty hovered about the girlish face. Her hair was no longer neglected, and she wore a knot of lace at her throat. Larry took this as a good sigu. "If I was sure I could make you happy," she said, half-wistfully, "what better could I do with my life? It would be better, perhaps, than But no! How would you bear it when your wife would be scorned, when her past would be raked up and a story of shame whispered about? Would it not stab you with sharper pangs than you feel now? No, Larry, I cannot believe But in a moment the fire and light faded from her face, that you could endure that unmoved." and left it pale and haggard as before. "It is too late-too late!" she moaned. "Leave me. I am going to die-I have begun to die. Don't you see death in my face? Women like me ought to die. is nothing else—” There "No! no! no!" cried Larry, seizing her hand, "you must live! I will help you to live! You are so young, my poor darling! You were so innocent! You have many a fair new leaf to turn open in the book of life." "Do you not think I would not always be turning back to that one, all blotted and stained as it is? Larry, I am not the girl you have known. I am something you do not know-something hard, bitter, defiant-ready to curse God and die." How changed she was! What depths of desolate darkness in the brown eyes! what tears of pain and penitence had washed those cheeks and taken away their bloom! what spasms of anguish contracted the sweetly curved lips, once like a ripe cherry! what vigils had wasted the face and taken its light and bloom away! Poor Sunflower! So fond of warmth and love, how changed she was, now that she knew what storm and terror and darkness meant ! Yet Larry looked at her with new tenderness. It was in this man's nature that, the more desolate and forsaken, the more utterly the fair places in her life were laid waste, the more fond and pitying became his love. He longed to shelter and protect her. She would be doubly his own. But Sunflower had sunk back, exhausted by her brief passion. Her face grew fixed again in its blank despair. She scarcely listened to his pleading words. Her eyes seemed to stare dumbly at some unseen thing, as if nothing in this world could rouse her to interest again. Larry went there again and again. He took her books and flowers and bonbons. She did not look at them. She sometimes roused, when a word touched on her old life, as if something had suddenly stung her; when he talked about the future she looked at him with wonder. Once she roused herself from her lethargy to say: "There is no one like you, Larry; there is not such another true, unselfish nature in the world. Do not love me-do not waste your time with me. I care enough for you to beg you to leave me." "I shall never leave you-never go till you promise to go with me," Larry said, his heart suddenly beating hard. "Dear, won't you let me comfort you-make up to you for all the past? I know what I am doing. I am not a silly boy carried away by a fancy. Whatever you are, you are all to me. "I can endure anything but to lose you!" he cried. The girl looked at him wonderingly. "Ah!" she cried, with a bitter wail of untold anguish, "this is love. How different She broke off suddenly with a sob, and Larry knew she was thinking of the selfish passion that had worked her woe. Rousing herself a moment after, she said: "You are right. I must give you some answer. deserve it. I must not keep you longer in suspense. Come to-morrow, and I will tell you." You Larry's heart bounded joyously. He touched her hand reverently with his lips, and saw a hot tide of blood sweep up over her pale face. Could it be that his devotion had touched her heart at last? that, bruised and crushed as it had been, there was yet a pulse beating for the old days for him ? "My happiness is in your hand," he whispered; and then he did not trust himself to say more. He went home in a tumult of feeling, half fear, half hope. The night brought only troubled dreams; the day, a thousand fears. He heard the sounds of the work-day world as in a dream. How busy people were while life was standing still with him-while the pulses of life waited for the answer! At last the slow, sad hours ebbed away, and he stood once more on the threshold of her door. He had a bouquet in his hand-fair, white flowers of purity and fragrance. When she told him what he hoped, he would lay it in her hands. There is no sound in return to his knock. He waits and listens, his own heart-beating filling the ominous silence. Not a stir, or a sigh, or the faintest rustle of her dress. A nameless horror seizes him. He dashes open the door suddenly. There is a dull light. Ah, she is lying on the hard bed-sick, faint, in a swoon! What is it? He staggers forward. Her eyes are closed. The yellow hair has fallen upon the pillow. No other woman can fill your place. | child. |