Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow: A Novel

by C. Despard

The child shook her head.

"No, ma mie, nor do I very well, except that it is a transparent, beautiful something we in this world call light: what this something is I know not; I can only tell that the light is very good. Now, shall I tell you a story that came into my head a little minute ago, about the stars out there and the light?"

"Yes, yes!" Laura clasped her hands with delight.

In the joy of one of her friend's own stories even the trouble about her mother was for the time forgotten.

He stopped as if to think. How often in the long after-time, when L'Estrange was to the child only the memory of a strange dream, when the knowledge that womanhood brought threw its light on this part of her life, did Laura remember his look that evening. Even then, in her childhood's ignorance, it touched and charmed her, till all unconsciously she clung to him more closely and trusted him more fully. He was looking up. The fitful twilight was playing on his broad, massive brow, and on that brow was rest. But in the deep-set, passionate eyes, in the quivering lips, the struggle could still be read. A longing seemed to look out from his face—a longing that held and enchained him till it could be satisfied.

They sat by the window, L'Estrange in a deep arm-chair, the child in her favorite position on his knee. And after a pause, during which they were both looking up, watching how one star after another lit its small lamp in the sky, he began in a dreamy tone, rather as if he were speaking to himself than to any listener: "They are all alive; yes, must it not be so? for every body has a soul. Those bright ones that walk in light amid the ceaseless music of the spheres are instinct with the mystery that we of this world call Life. And why should this not be? for life consists in the power of movement and volition. Surely they move. Science proves that they revolve evermore in their grand orbits, and surely they will to shine, for it is only when we need their light that the light appears. Yes, it is true—these bright things live. They suffer pain, they know delight as well as we."

Then, as the clasping arms of the little one recalled him to the remembrance of her presence, he smiled: "I promised a story, and ma fillette will scarcely understand such philosophy yet. It was a prelude to the tale. Listen, then, ma mie. Those bright things up there are alive. Each one has its spirit, a being more beautiful than we of earth can conceive. I must describe them, must I? Hélas, bébé! I fear it is beyond me. I must tell, then, of things that have not for me the beauty they once had—the golden dawn, and the silver twilight, and the freshness of early youth, and the mildness of sunset skies. Put all these together and thou hast a part only of the fairness of these beings, who were placed by God thousands of ages since in the bright stars up there. The spirits were given a work to do. They were to shine when the sun, who was made to be king over them all, had gone away to rest behind the sky. The stars were glad when they were told to shine, for they were all good, and this shining, which is for the good of our dark world down here, made them happy. Little children who look, as ma fillette is doing now, at those stars up there, feel glad when they see the light, but they do not know that the stars are glad too—that when they shine out in the night they are singing aloud for joy."

Laura looked delighted, and put out her hand to stop her friend for a moment: "They must be singing now. Oh listen! Perhaps we shall hear them."

But he shook his head and smiled: "No, petite: long ago, when there were very few people, this music was heard. Now there are too many noises; but if any one could hear it would be such as thee."