Mary.
I laugh at you?
Grace.
Forgive me, Mary, for my heart is weak;
Distrustful of itself and all the world.
Ah, well! To what strange issues leads our life!
It seems but yesterday that you were brought
To this old house, an orphaned little girl,
Whose large shy eyes, pale cheeks, and shrinking ways
Filled all our hearts with wonder, as we stood
And stared at you, until your heart o'erfilled
With the oppressive strangeness, and you wept.
Yes, I remember how I pitied you—
I who had never wept, nor even sighed,
Save on the bosom of my gentle mother;
For my quick heart caught all your history
When with a hurried step you sought the sun,
And pressed your eyes against the windowpane
That God's sweet light might dry them. Well I knew
Though all untaught, that you were motherless.
And I remember how I followed you,—
Embraced and kissed you—kissed your tears away—
Tears that came faster, till they bathed the lips
That would have sealed their flooded fountain-heads;
And then we wound our arms around each other,
And passed out-out under the pleasant sky,
And stood among the lilies at the door.
I gave no formal comfort; you, no thanks;
For tears had been your language, kisses mine,
And we were friends. We talked about our dolls,
And all the pretty playthings we possessed.
Then we revealed, with childish vanity,
Our little stores of knowledge. I was full
Of a sweet marvel when you pointed out
The yellow thighs of bees that, half asleep,
Plundered the secrets of the lily-bells,
And called the golden pigment honeycomb.
And your black eyes were opened very wide
When I related how, one sunny day,
I found a well, half covered, down the lane,
That was so deep and clear that I could see
Straight through the world, into another sky!
Mary.
Do you remember how the Guinea hens
Set up a scream upon the garden wall,
That frightened me to running, when you screamed
With laughter quite as loud?
Grace.
Aye, very well;
But better still the scene that followed all.
Oh, that has lingered in my memory
Like that divinest dream of Raphael—
The Dresden virgin prisoned in a print—
That watched with me in sickness through long weeks,
And from its frame upon the chamber-wall
Breathed constant benedictions, till I learned
To love the presence like a Roman saint.
My mother called us in; and at her knee,
Embracing still, we stood, and felt her smile
Shine on our upturned faces like the light
Of the soft summer moon. And then she stooped;
And when she kissed us, I could see the tears
Brimming her eyes. O sweet experiment!
To try if love of Jesus and of me
Could make our kisses equal to her lips!
Then straight my prescient heart set up a song,
And fluttered in my bosom like a bird.