But the child was sad this beautiful October night. The birds were nodding quietly in the old rookery; there was no music in the air, for the winds under a coverlid of emerald and amber and carmine had gone fast to sleep in the trees, and the tintinnabulation of the little bells in the meadows had ceased altogether.
"If I could whisper to the stars what I would like to have them know of my unhappy life they would sympathize and perhaps they would whisper back.
"Poor forlorn child! How we pity you!"
"Tomorrow," she said reflectively, "I shall be twenty-four years of age, and oh, how all encompassing has been the evil. Every picture that glides athwart my heart is broken: every idol that I have fondly loved is nothing more than an effigy. Delusions follow delusions; what is life but a burden? If we look forward there are demons: if we look backward there are coffins."
The poor wearied girl, sad and without hope, fell asleep in her mother's chair as softly as if the angels were rocking the dear old chair and singing the old nursery lullabies; they must have kissed her heavy eyelids down; so profound, so tranquil was her slumber.
When she awoke the little birds were singing as cheerily all around her in the magnolias and oaks as if their little tongues were touched with the spirit of her happy dreams.
The cloud that overcast her face was gone and she went into the kitchen where Clarissa was absorbed in her duties.
Clarissa exclaimed as she entered the kitchen, "Miss Alice, whar in de name ob commun sense has yer been all dis time? Here I's been a cummun and ergwine, a ransackin dis house high and low fur yer. Didn't yer heer me callin yer, missis? I spishuned yar wus in ole marser's room fast asleep."
Alice was obliged to confess, a little shamefacedly, that she had fallen asleep in the little alcove in the verandah and had slept so soundly that she heard no noises until awakened by the twittering of the birds in the over-arching bower.
"Sakes alive, missis," exclaimed Clarissa "sum ob dese nites a grate big snake is ergwine to drap rate down into yer lap und sting yer moest to def. How dos yer feel missis arter dis toxication?" the negress asked solicitously.