A Singer from the Sea

by Amelia E. Barr

“I will not have it in the house––’tis a shame to me; it breaks my heart; how could you, mother?” and she drew the paper away, and walking to the fire, threw it upon the coals. It burned slowly, browning gradually from the dancing feet to the tips of the fingers meeting above the head.

With a white, sad face she watched it burn to a brown film that the upward draught of the chimney carried out of her sight. Joan also watched the immolation, and she was a little angry at it. That picture of Mademoiselle Denasia was one of Joan’s secret idols. No one likes to watch the destruction of their idols, and Joan was hardly pacified by the kisses and loving words with which Denas extenuated her act. For an hour or two she had an air of injury. She had been in the habit of showing this 341 picture with an air of serious secrecy and with many sighs to any new acquaintance or strange visitor, and its destruction really put a stop to this clandestine bit of egotism; for who would believe such an improbable story without the pictured Denasia to prove it?

Denas regarded the incident as a happy omen. As she watched the picture turn to cinder, she buried fathoms deep below the tide of her present life all the restless, profitless, half-regretful memories it represented. A word or two said by the preacher the day he visited her school had clung to her consciousness as a burr clings to wool. They were speaking of the education necessary for the class of children gathered there, and Denas, after naming the studies pursued, said: “They are sufficient for the life before them;” then, with an involuntary sigh, she added, “It is a very narrow life.”

And perhaps the minister had heard something of her story, for he answered gravely: “God knows just where He wants every soul. That is the life, that is the school, for that soul, and no life is too narrow. The humblest will afford

“‘The common round, the trivial task Which furnish all we ought to ask–– Room to deny ourselves.’

Mrs. Tresham, that is the grand lesson we are sent here to learn; self-denial, as against self-pleasing and self-assertion.”

Denas only said, “Yes, sir;” but she took the 342 words into her heart and found herself repeating them a hundred times a day.

Tris came home just before Easter. The spring was in his heart, the spring was in his life and love. The winds, the young trees, the peeping crocus-buds, were part and parcel of Denas and of his hopes in her. What charming walks they took to their home! What suggestions and improvements and alterations they made! No two young thrushes, building their first nest, could have been more interested and more important. Mr. and Mrs. Arundel had remained in town for the Easter holidays, and Tris was very nearly lord of all his time. He rather thought Mr. Arundel had purposely left him so at this happy epoch, and the idea gave him the more pleasure in his light duties.

There was a great deal of good-natured discussion about the proper date for this wonderful wedding. Tris acted as if it was the first wedding in the world. He was sure everyone in St. Penfer and St. Clair would be disappointed beyond comfort unless they had a chance to be present. He thought, therefore, that Easter Sunday would be the day of days in this respect. All the boats would be in harbour. All the women and children would have their new gowns and bonnets on. There would be a special service in the chapel––and then, finally:

“The house be ready, mother, and I be ready, and Denas be ready, and what are we waiting for?”