III.
Never was one sister so proud of another as I of Hessie. She was only seventeen, three years younger than I, and I felt almost a motherly love for her. She was slight and fair, and childish both in face and disposition. I gloried in her beauty; her head reminded me of Raffaelle's angels. I thought that one day I should paint a picture with Hessie for my model—a picture which should win the love and admiration of all who gazed. One leisure time, in the midst of my happiness, I suddenly resolved to commence the work. I chose a scene from our favorite poem of Enid—the part where the mother goes to her daughter's chamber, bearing Geraint's message, and finds
'Half disarrayed, as to her rest, the girl,
Whom first she kissed on either cheek, and then
On either shining shoulder laid a hand,
And kept her off, and gazed into her face,
And told her all their converse in the hall,
Proving her heart. But never light and shade
Coursed one another more on open ground,
Beneath a troubled heaven, than red and pale
Across the face of Enid, hearing her;
While slowly falling, as a scale that falls
When weight is added only grain by grain,
Sank her sweet head upon her gentle breast.
Nor did she lift an eye, nor speak a word,
Rapt in the fear, and in the wonder of it."
I made a sketch. Never had I been so happy in any attempt. My own mother, worn, sad, dignified—I gave her face and form to the poet's conception of Enid's mother. And Hessie made a very lovely Enid, with the white drapery clinging to her round shoulders, and her golden head drooped. I wrought out all the accessories with scrupulous care—the shadowy old tower-chamber; the open window, and the dim drifts of cloud beyond; the stirring tapestry; the lamp upon the table, flinging its yellow light on the rich faded dress of the mother and on Enid's glistening hair.
I toiled at the sketch almost as if I had meant to make it a finished picture. It was large. I lavished labor upon it with a passionate energy. I never wearied of conjuring up ideas of beauty, to lay them in luxurious profusion under my brush. I gloried in the work of my hands; and yet I felt impatient when others praised it. I burned to show them what the finished picture should prove to be. This sketch, much as I prized it as an earnest of future success, I held only as the shadow of that which must one day live in perfection on the canvas. So I raved in my dreams.
I had resolved not to speak of it to Edward Vance till I had completed the sketch. I had Hessie's promise not to show it, not to tell him. I worked at it daily, not feeling that I worked, but only that I lived—only that my soul was accomplishing its appointed task of creation; that it breathed in its element, revelled in its God-given power; that it was uttering that which should stir many other souls with a myriad blessed inspirations, long after the worn body had refused to shelter it longer, and eternity had summoned it from the world of endeavor to that rest which, in the fever of its earnestness, it knew not yet how to appreciate.
And Hessie stood for me, patient day after day.
"But never light and shade
Coursed one another more on open ground,
Beneath a troubled heaven, than red and pale
Across the face of Enid, hearing her."
I read aloud the passage again and again, that Hessie might feel it as well as I. And truly, as I worked, the color on Hessie's cheek changed and changed under my eyes, till I forgot my purpose in wondering at her. One day, while I laid down my brush questioning her, she burst into tears, and sobbed in childish impetuous distress. She would not answer my anxious questions; she shunned my sympathy.
But that night, before I slept, I had my little sister's secret. She worshipped Edward Vance as simple childish natures worship heroes whom they exalt to the rank of gods.