Celeste hesitated. To visit Vicksburg and the land of her birth was one of the dreams of her life, and now to go with dear brother Jack! Her eyes sparkled, the sweet lips parted and Elisha had won.
Taking the curly brown head in both his great brown hands, Elisha looked earnestly into her eyes. His heart was too full for words; and with a sigh of perfect content she threw her arms around his neck feeling that under the protection of such love, her way through life would be guarded from every care. Her own unworthiness, her distorted views of the real duties of life, overwhelmed her, and her tone was almost pathetic as she said:
“Elisha, you have chosen a helpless partner. I see it all now, my blind selfishness and aimless existence. The grand possibilities of life have heretofore applied to others, but with your help, I intend to take my place in the arena and together we will fight our battles.”
“And win them, my darling,” he said, kissing again and again the warm red lips so temptingly near his own.
The thoughtless, pleasure-seeking girl now stood before Elisha transformed into a glorious woman with an earnest purpose. The scales had fallen from her eyes now flashing with new brilliancy. Granny’s words, “No De Vere is a coward,” proved her not an exception.
If a tiny cloud crossed their horizon just then, it passed unobserved. In their own radiant happiness, they forgot that there might be misery for others.
Infinite Wisdom has so formed man that through the rift in to-morrow’s cloud, he may catch the brightness of to-day, that strength may be given him to guide his frail bark along the ever-changing current of life’s river. He may know that trials come to him with beneficent purpose, and that no one is given more than he can bear.
On the grave of perverted aims and impulsive desires, Celeste’s “barren fig tree is given another season.”