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“Sweet, calm days, in golden haze Melt down the amber sky,” |
had died on bare brown stubble-fields and vine-veined hill-sides, purple with clustering grapes on leafless branches; and wintry days had come, with sleety morns and chill, crisp noons, and scarlet sunset banners flouting the silver stars in western skies, where the shivering, gasping old year had woven,—
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“One strait gown of red Against the cold.” |
None of the earlier years of Salome’s life seemed to her half so drearily long as the four monotonous months that followed Dr. Grey’s departure; and, during the intervals between his brief letters to his sister, the orphan learned a deceptive quietude of manner, at variance with the tumultuous feelings that agitated her heart; for painful suspense which is borne with clenched hands and firmly-set teeth is not the more patient because sternly mute.
Which suffered least, Philoctetes howling on the shores of Lemnos, or the silent Trojan priest, writhing in a death-struggle with the serpent folds that crushed him before the altar of Neptune?
If any messages intended for Salome found their way across the ocean, they finally missed their destination, and reached the dead-letter office of Miss Jane’s vast and inviolate pocket; and, while this apparent neglect piqued the girl’s vanity, the blessed assurance that the absent master was alive and well proved a sovereign balm for all the bleeding wounds of amour propre.
In order to defray the expense of her musical tuition, which was carried on in profound secrecy, it was necessary to redouble her exertions; and all the latent energy of her character developed itself in unflagging work, which she persistently prosecuted early and late, and in quiet defiance of Miss Jane’s expostulations and predictions that she would permanently impair her sight.
Paramount to the desire of amassing wealth that would enable her to provide for Jessie and Stanley rose the hope that the cultivation of her voice would invest her with talismanic influence over the man who was singularly susceptible of the magic of music; and, jealously guarding the new-found gift, she spared no toil to render it perfect.
Fearful that her suddenly acquired fondness for singing might arouse suspicion and inquiry, she rarely practised at home unless Miss Jane were absent; and, having procured a tuning-fork, she retreated to the most secluded portion of the adjoining forest and rehearsed her lessons to a mute audience of grazing cattle, sombre pines, nodding plumes of golden-rod, 104 and shivering white asters, belated and overtaken by wintry blasts. Alone with nature, she warbled as unrestrainedly as the birds who listened to her quavering crescendos; and more than once she had become so absorbed in this forest practising, that twinkling stars peeped down at her through the fringy canopy of murmuring firs.