Instead of the Thorn: A Novel

by Clara Louise Burnham

Whitcomb shrugged his shoulders under this insistence. "Perhaps he did," he admitted. "I spoke several times about you on the train, of course,—how I anticipated seeing you and all that." The speaker's eyes again sought some personal reassurance from his companion's distant gaze.

"And he didn't say anything?"

"I don't remember. I didn't notice. I don't think so."

"Fred,"—Linda leaned forward in her earnestness and wrung her hands together,—"you don't know how hard it is for me to sit here and wait instead of running—running to Bertram and confessing the wrong I've done and imploring his forgiveness."

"None of that: none of that." Whitcomb raised a warning hand. "You mustn't say things to King to excite him. He's glassware, remember, glassware." The speaker sank on his elbow, bringing his eager, boyish face nearer the girl's white gown. His hat was on the grass beside him and his thick hair fell forward in his movement.

"But here I am, Linda," he added, in a different tone, "husky to the limit. When it comes to me, go as far as you like. You haven't seemed conscious of me yet."

"Oh, yes, I'm conscious of you. I'm very grateful to you for finding out the truth and taking such care of Bertram." The girl's eyes were glowing in her pale face. "'Instead of the thorn';—Fred, did you ever read the Bible?"

Whitcomb sat up under the sudden question, and stared at her.

"The Bible!" he repeated. "Why, sure thing—some of it."

"There's a promise in it, 'Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree.' It struck some chord in me when first I read it and it seems to mean more and more. See those firs,"—Linda waved her hand to where on the other side of the little brook the soft variation of color in the evergreens stood against the sky. "Breathe the balm they send out in the air? Mrs. Porter has shown me how it just rests with us to do away with the wounding thorn, and receive the peace of the stanch, unchanging fir tree, with its soft, invigorating perfume and color, and the music in its branches. It has come to be a great symbol to me—the fir tree."