The Land of Joy

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“How do you do, Mr. North? It was very kind of you to come with Phil. Mamma will be awfully pleased. She feared toward the last that you would change your mind.”

“The kindness is yours, Miss Ryerson. It’s good of you and your mother to want to be bothered with a stranger, especially at Christmas time. I told Phil when he invited me to come that I feared you’d think me something of an interloper, but the temptation was too strong; and here I am. If I’m in the way, please pack me off home again.” Margaret Ryerson smiled and made room for him beside her on the front seat.

“If you stay until your welcome wears out,” she answered, “I fear your studies will suffer mightily. Mamma is quite ready to adopt you, Mr. North. Do you want to be adopted?”

“Nothing would please me more. I think, though, you’d better try me a few days beforehand; I wouldn’t like to have you disappointed when it was too late.”

“That’s all right,” cried Phillip. “I’ll guarantee him. Put the sticks in here, Bob, and the guns. All ready now. Let him go. Remember, Margey, you’ve got two precious young lives in your care; so careful at the corners!”

Cardinal had become highly impatient at the long wait, and while they threaded their way through the quaint, straggling little town he demanded all of Margaret’s attention. Out on the hard country road, however, he ceased his tantrums and settled down to a long, even trot that was good to behold. Maid, excited by the homecoming and the release from long confinement, dashed hither and thither barking rapturously. Phillip leaned over the back of the front seat between his sister and John and hurled a veritable fusillade of questions at the former. Very soon John dropped out of the conversation altogether, save when his attention was called to something by the way, and he leaned back comfortably, glad to have his thoughts to himself for awhile. By turning his head slightly, as though in attention to what Phillip was saying, it was possible for him to study Margaret Ryerson without appearing to do so, and he made the most of the opportunity.

She was all that the photograph on Phillip’s mantel had led him to expect; all and the much more that is represented by the difference between cardboard and real flesh and blood. A writer may catalogue carefully every feature of a woman’s face, every contour of her body, every colour and hue of hair and eyes and skin, and when he has finished, the mental picture held by the reader will no more resemble the woman seen by the writer than an outline drawing resembles an oil painting; and this because no writer has it in his power to describe what we call the expression of the face so that another can behold it. Expression is the outward reflection of the personality within; it is the soul looking forth from the body. Reynolds says: “In portraits, the grace, and, we may add, the likeness, consists more in the general air than in the exact similitude of every feature.” Without expression there can be no portrait; only paint and canvas. Having set forth the impossibility of his task and having thoroughly discouraged himself at the outset, the writer now follows in the footsteps of all others of his kind, assured of failure.

Margaret Ryerson was a trifle over medium height and seemed slighter than was really the case, possibly because of a gracefulness that was apparent even in the slightest turn of the head or lifting of the hand; a gracefulness possessed in a less marked degree by Phillip, and which, in her case as well as his, was largely due to a lifelong acquaintance with the saddle. Her resemblance to her brother did not end there: her features were his softened, feminized, and the contour of the face, although more rounded and delicate, recalled his. Her hair was deeply brown, but held warmer colour than Phillip’s, while her eyes were at least a shade darker. They were serious eyes, and to-day, at least, shadowed as they were by the falling brim of her felt hat, impressed John as being somewhat inscrutable; nor could he later ever quite convince himself that this first impression was wrong.

For a Southerner Margaret’s complexion was light, and her cheeks held more colour than is looked for in women born below Mason and Dixon’s line. Beside her’s, Phillip’s face looked sallow. Her mouth was small and her lips were less full than her brother’s. No face was ever yet formed quite perfect, and Margaret’s held one fault at least: the chin was a trifle too prominent for absolute symmetry. And yet that very imperfection helped to form a whole that many persons thought beautiful. John, at least, saw nothing that he would have had altered. He thought her lovely, and experienced an odd and delightful sort of pride in her, as though she were a discovery or creation of his own.

He had hoped for a good deal, as he could see now when he found opportunity to compare his preconceived ideas with the reality, and was not disappointed; on the contrary, the real Margaret Ryerson far excelled the ideal. The impression he received of her that afternoon while spinning over the undulating country road between far-stretching fields and wooded hilltops, and one which he retained ever afterward, was a very wholesome one. Her general expression was serious, though far from somber, and her smiles, frequent as they were, were little ones in which the deep brown eyes seemed more concerned than the lips. John found that she did not laugh often; and when she did it was like a brook that ripples all the merrier for being confined for a space. Yet, while her face expressed gravity, it told no tale of unhappiness or dissatisfaction; rather quiet contentment, a thankful joy of existence that found expression in graciousness and kindness rather than in exuberance of talk and laughter. Here, John told himself, was a woman whose love could not be easily gained, and was therefore better worth the winning. And he meant to win it. He had meant to ever since he had received her letter, and now his resolution was strengthened and intensified. He spoke for the first time in many minutes: