THE FACE AND THE HEART.
"Can I give up my beautiful face, and become a poor little drudge, like Daisy?" asked Maud of herself. "No, it's a great deal too much trouble. I can find plenty of friends at the fair; and so I will forget the sad, sweet face that has haunted me all these months."
So Maud never told that she had looked upon Christ; though every time Daisy spoke of him, she felt it could be no other.
The winter came on; and the report of Maud's beauty had spread so far, that she was invited to balls in the neighboring towns; and she no longer walked, for people sent their elegant carriages for her.
The dame took care that she should have dresses and jewels in abundance; and Daisy could not but feel proud when she saw her sister look like such a splendid lady; though sometimes she would be frightened by seeing the eyes of a live snake glittering among Maud's diamonds, and something that seemed like the teeth of a wolf glistening among her pearls.
The beauty had many lovers, but she found some fault with each; until, one day, the handsomest and gayest man in all the country round asked her to marry him.
She refused, at first, because he had not quite so much money as the others; but when she saw how many ladies were in love with him, Maud felt it would be a fine thing to humble them, and show her own power. The old dame could give them money enough; and so she changed her mind, and began to make ready for her wedding.
Then you should have seen the splendid things that the old dame brought, day after day, and poured on the cabin floor—velvets, and heavy brocades, gay ribbons and silks, and costly laces; as for the pearls and diamonds, you would think she had found them by handfuls in the river bed, there were so many.
Meantime Daisy had come across a very different jewel, though I am not sure but it was worth a cabin full of such as Maud's.
Once she was walking with the little beggar girl, whom Daisy called her own child now, and named Susan, after her mother; before them, climbing the hill side, was a man in a coarse blue frock, who seemed like a herdsman.
He was driving his cows, and turning back to look for a stray one, Susan chanced to see his face; she broke from Daisy, and with a cry of joy, ran into the herdsman's arms.
His name was Joseph; and Daisy learned that, when the little girl's mother was sick, Joseph had brought her food, and taken the kindest care of her; but his master sent him to buy some cows in a distant town, and before he reached home again, Susan's mother did not need any more charity, and the poor child herself was cast out into the streets.
They sat on the grass beside Joseph; and Daisy found that, for all his coarse dress, he loved beautiful things as well as herself, and had sat there, day after day, watching the river and sky, and finding out the secrets of the birds, seeing the insects gather in their stores, and the rabbits burrow, and listening to the whisper of the leaves.
And, in cold winter nights, he had watched the stars moving on in their silent paths, so far above his head, and fancied he could find pictures and letters among them, and that they beckoned, and seemed to promise, if he would only try, he might come and live with them.
Then, out of some young shoots of elder, Joseph had made a flute; and Daisy was enchanted when he played on this, for, besides that she had never heard a musical instrument before, he seemed to bring every thing she loved around her in his wonderful tunes.
She could almost see the dark pine tops gilded with morning light, and the cabin nestling under them; and then the song of a bird, and of many birds, trilled out from amidst the boughs, and the little leaves on the birch trees trembled as with joy, and her rabbits darted through the shade.
Again, she saw the wide river rolling on, the sky reflected in it, and the flowers on its banks just lifting their sweet faces to the sun, and every thing was wet with dew, and fresh, and silent.
And then he played what was like a storm, with lightning, and huge trees crashing down, and the old dame seated before her fire in the cave, and Daisy herself creeping alone through the dark, tired, and drenched with rain.
Daisy told her new friend that she lived in the wood, and what a beautiful sister she had at home, and how she wished that Maud could hear his music.
But Joseph seemed contented to play for her, and could not leave his cows, he said, to look upon a handsome face; he did not care so much for bright eyes and pretty lips as for goodness and gentleness, that would make the ugliest face look beautiful to him.