Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell.
Cast up thy Life’s foam-fretted feet between;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
Which had Life’s form and Love, but by my spell
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable.”
But “time does not stop for tears,” and the days and months rolled away and brought round golden June again, so that it was a year since Leola had ridden out so joyfully on Rex to meet her fate in Chester Olyphant’s dark blue eyes.
They were in Paris now, and everyone knows how charming Paris is in June, but somehow Leola’s thoughts turned backward to the West Virginia hills that she had vowed she never cared to see again—turned back with a strange homesickness to the wild and picturesque scenes where her joyous youth had been nurtured, to the old faces, the old pleasures, and she thought that she should like to get on Rex’s back again for a breezy canter into the country town, or on to the old Blue Sulphur Spring for a draught of its cold, clear, sparkling water.
She could close her eyes and see just how it was looking, after the long, cold winter, in its new summer gown of green, trimmed with violets, blue and white—that dear old hillside back of the house; and the orchard would be decked in pink and white, and the birds would be singing like mad in the branches, and the sky would be blue and sunny, and the sweet air seem like an elixir of life.
She opened her eyes, and she was in Paris again, and she had in her hand a memorandum for the shopping she was going to do that week—gowns and laces and jewels, to deck that wonderful beauty, to set off, like a splendid frame, the peerless form, the flowerlike face, with its somber dark eyes and thick waves of ruddy golden hair—the Titian shade artists raved over.
Her father had had her portrait painted—full length, and all in white—and all Paris had raved over it when the artist had it on exhibition those few days before it was boxed to be shipped to America. She had made many friends, been entertained at the homes of the rich and great, had refused dazzling offers to the wonder of all, and here she was, all at once, with a fit of nostalgia for the simple home and kindly faces that were gone out of her life forever—or so she thought.