The cultured, artistic, delicate taste of Boston’s arbiter elegantiarum never produced anything approaching the exquisite blending of colors and unique, airy, harmonious fittings seen in this, the ideal conception of the abode of angels.
The delicacy and tenderness of Lucy’s refined and loving spirit contributed to create an indefinable feeling that this was the chosen spot where innocence, purity and love should seek repose. Her womanly instinct had added soft shadings to art’s perfect handiwork.
The great sea shell, half opened, made of shining silver, lined with the pearly product of the Eastern Isles, in which lie, soft and white as snow, downy cushions, filled from the breasts of Orkney’s far-famed fowls, and these be-trimmed with lace in tracery like frost on window pane, in texture so gossamery and light that the brief span of life seems all too short in which to weave one inch, must surely be the nest wherein some heaven-sent cherub shall nestle down in sleep.
Some sprite from fairy-land alone may make a toilet with the miniature articles of Etruscan gold, bejeweled with gems of azure-hued turquois that fill the gilded dressing case.
The chiffoniers, tables, chairs and stands are all inlaid with woods of the rarest kinds and colors, with ivory and polished pearl shells interwoven in queerly conceived mosaic; mirrors of finest plate here and there are arranged that they may catch the beauteous image of the cherubic occupant of this bijou bower, and countlessly reproduce its angelic features; urns and basins of transparent china-ware, in the production of which France and Germany have surpassed all former efforts, beautified by the brushes of world-renowned artists, furnish vessels in which the rosy, laughing face and dimpled limbs may lave.
The Western hills have cooled the eager glance of the August sun. Lucy, softly humming as she assorts and arranges a great basket of choice buds and blossoms just arrived from the “Eyrie,” is seated alone in a fantastic garden pagoda, which, trellised by climbing rose bushes, stands within the grounds of the Dunlap estate.
As she rocks back and forth in the low chair that is placed there for her comfort, little gleams of sunshine sifting through the screen of roses wander amidst her gold-brown tresses and spot the filmy gown of white she wears with silver splashes. As the lights and shadows of the gently swaying leaves and roses dance about her, she seems surrounded by hosts of cherubim in frolicsome attendance on her. Some thought of that nature came to her, for she let her hands lie still in her lap among the blossoms and watched the ever fleeting, changeful rays of sunlight and shade that like an April shower fell upon her. Then she smiled as at some unseen spirit and smiling grew pensive.
The limpid light in Lucy’s eyes, as gazing into the future she sees the coming glory of her womanhood, is that same light that shone along the road from Galilee to Bethlehem, when she, most blessed of women for all time, rode humbly on an ass to place an eternal monarch on a throne.
That light in Lucy’s pensive hazel eyes, that gentle, hopeful expectant look on her sweet face, has, from the time that men were born on earth subdued the fiery rage of angry braves in mortal strife engaged, has turned brutality into cowering shame, and caused the harshest, roughest and most savage of the human kind to smooth the brow, soften the voice and gently move aside, rendering ready homage to a being raised higher far than the throne of the mightiest king on earth.
As she, who chambered with the cattle on Judah’s hills, opened the passage from the groaning earth to realms of eternal bliss by what she gave to men, so ever those crowned with that pellucid halo of expected maternity stand holding ajar the gates that bar the path from man to that mysterious source of life and soul called God.